Storm damage in Northwest Baltimore neighborhoods
After the Orioles’ victory on Friday night and the post-game fireworks show, my compatriots and I took refuge from the impending storm in a nearby establishment. We watched from inside as the trees blew sideways and the rain soaked the streets in the Ridgely’s Delight neighborhood. After making our way up the JFX onto Northern Parkway and then Falls Road, we saw fallen trees, branches and construction cones scattered through the streets, like a video game obstacle course. The damage caused by Derecho was hard to navigate in the absence of street lights as I weaved my car through the wooded and winding section of Cross Country Boulevard. There wasn’t much I could film that late and not knowing what kind of situation I could find myself in with fallen trees and broken power lines, I called it a night.
After about a 4-hour nap, I was back out at 6 a.m. with my camera at hand shooting photos and video. Here’s the scene from Mt. Washington, Roland Park, and Pikesville.
- Orange rays from the early morning sun peeked through the trees on Cross Country Boulevard for a few minutes while I was there. At the time, the road had three or four trees down as major obstacles. (Jon Sham/Patuxent Homestead)
- Debris is scattered all up and down on the heavily-wooded Cross Country Boulevard in Mt. Washington. This was the first street I went to Saturday morning at about 6:30, and there were others on the road taking a walk and surveying the damage. (Jon Sham/Patuxent Homestead)
- A large tree went down onto Merville Avenue in Mt. Washington, and took with it a section of this fence and a nearby power line. (Jon Sham/Patuxent Homestead)
- What is typically three lanes on Northern Parkway headed from Mt. Washington towards Roland Park was turned into one by a large tree that fell intro the road. There were many such trees all along that stretch of road Saturday morning. (Jon Sham/Patuxent Homestead)
- One of the drawbacks to getting on the road before the clean-up crews did was that I came across several roads that were completely blocked, much like this section of Greenspring Avenue. (Jon Sham/Patuxent Homestead)
- On Rockwood Avenue, off Pimlico Road, I found this tree lying across the entire front lawn of a house and into the neighboring property. (Jon Sham/Patuxent Homestead)
- At Glen and Merville avenues — which are intersecting roads — two trees had fallen blocking passage to both. One of the trees took down this power line pole a fence. (Jon Sham/Patuxent Homestead)
- Cars, trucks and buses try to share this section of Falls Road, between Kelly Avenue and Northern Parkway, as a tree has taken over half of it. (Jon Sham/Patuxent Homestead)
- I came upon this fallen tree blocking passage through Ken Oak Road in Mt. Washington, right after I was turned around by another blocked road. I had to back all the way up the narrow street to get out. (Jon Sham/Patuxent Homestead)
And here’s a compilation of some video clips I took (without a tripod) from the streets I passed through Saturday morning.