LOCHEARN, Md. — A summer storm knocked out power for thousands of Baltimore County residents Wednesday, leaving BGE crews working to restore electricity across several neighborhoods.
In the Lochearn area, near Milford Mill just off Liberty Road, a pole caught fire in a backyard on Latham Road Tuesday night.
Frances Smith, who lives in Lochearn, called the fire department right away.
"Scary," Smith told WMAR-2 News, "especially when they said they didn't know if the line was going to fall and if the line fell, it was going to take out our shed and the house. They had us evacuate for about an hour and a half."
Smith said there was no damage to her home.
BGE crews worked on the backyard pole Wednesday afternoon as neighbors looked on. It was one of many neighborhoods in western Baltimore County to see storm damage.
Our camera also downed branch about ten minutes away on Church Lane, just off Milford Mill Road. Some customers in the county were told power may not return until Thursday.
Darlene Connor Graham, also of Lochearn, said the neighborhood has dealt with extended power loss before.
"Not fire, but we've been through outages before, yes, several days, so we're sort of prepared a little bit, but we have generators in the area and we help each other as neighbors."
"We're doing OK. I mean, I'm not worried about food in the freezer. If it thaws out, throw it on the grill, offer it to the neighbors. We're all in the same boat."
By late Wednesday afternoon, outages across the county had begun to dwindle as BGE crews moved through several neighborhoods.
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