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First winter storm causes hundreds of power outages, crashes and closures

Posted at 7:59 AM, Dec 17, 2020
and last updated 2020-12-17 10:48:11-05

BALTIMORE — Wednesday night most Marylanders went to bed with snow on the ground in what was the first storm of the 2020-2021 winter season.

By Thursday morning those same residents woke up to still see snow on the ground, but with ice on the roads in many places.

Depending on where you live in the state, snow fell anywhere from one to 12 inches.

Snow totals
snow totals

Just to give you an idea of the conditions, from 9 am Wednesday to 5 am Thursday, Maryland State Police said they responded to 1159 calls for service.

Of those 356 were crashes, 226 for disabled or unattended vehicles, and 17 roadside hazards such as downed trees or wires.

According to a BGE map, there are still 145 active power outages affecting 2,201 customers. Over 1.3 million were served since the storm began.

Although many school students in Maryland continue to attend class virtually, most of those who don't and go in person were told not to come in and log in from home.

Some school districts like Cecil County even delayed online learning by a couple hours.

This meant some schools meal and transportation services were canceled.

In Timonium the weather caused COVID-19 testing to be shut down at the State Fairgrounds. The City closed its recycling and collection drop-off yards.

Right now several counties have chosen to keep their snow emergency plans activated, until conditions improve.