ELLICOTT CITY, Md — The clean up and power restoration continues after an ice storm Monday night knocked out power for hundreds in Howard and Baltimore counties.
"Usually we luck out. We haven’t lost power more than three or four times in the 17 years we’ve lived here," Ellicott City resident Julie Schmidt said.
But this time, the Schmidt's couldn't escape an outage in their neighborhood.
"This morning when we lost power, I was going to work from home because of the ice but I just got in my car and went out to Bethesda went to my office. My husband, who is self-employed and works from home, went to a friend's house that had power so we lucked out. But I think there's a lot of other people who are retired and unfortunately they probably weren’t in the same boat," Schmidt said.
An ice storm overnight brought down trees and power lines across Howard and Baltimore counties, leaving thousands in the dark for hours.
"It’s been a tough day for everybody," Ellicott City resident Bill Kurisch said.
He lost power early Tuesday morning too.
"We had to get some heat right away so I had a couple space heaters and a generator that we got going this morning," Kurisch said.
This evening, he went out to get more gas for the generator. When he got home, he still didn't have power. That's when we caught up with him, and right in the middle of our interview, much to his relief, the lights came back on.
"I’m very happy it came back on. This has happened before and I've had to get up like 3 or 4 in the morning to fill the gas back up," Kurisch said.
But the clean up and restoration continues. BGE had 600 of its workers plus 100 more from its sister utility company, Pepco, working across the state to restore electricity. And just after 7 p.m., Schmidt's power was turned back on too.
"Kudos to BGE for being out there this late at night in the dark, climbing up trees. I really appreciate their extra effort," Schmidt said.
