“No matter what storm water mitigation we have, when you have a thousand-year flood…you’re never going to sustain that”, Kittleman said. “It looks like a war zone”.
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Kittleman said 15cm of rain fell in just two hours on Saturday night – roughly the same amount that the city, which lies roughly 20km outside of Baltimore, gets in a month. The National Weather Service reported that the nearby Patapsco River surged more than 4m, according to NBC.
She hasn’t been able to talk to and thank the man who helped save her.
Officals say that in the Ellicott City area this was worse than the 1972 hurricane Agnes devastating flood in Ellicott City.
Hogan has already declared a state of emergency at the state level, and other jurisdictions, including Baltimore County and Annapolis, have offered whatever help is needed.
Some progress has been made on Main Street. Outside, they found choppy water up to the hoods of cars and Weglein watched as her own vehicle slammed into another.
Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman says that, while contractors are offering to donate building materials, it’s too soon for that kind of help – people mostly need food and money at this point.
She said she is working with Gov. Larry Hogan to see to it a request for a federal emergency declaration gets to President Barack Obama’s desk. When the water went down, they walked out to find incredible damage. “Then we found out people died and then it hit us”.
The community sits on a county line, which runs down the still-flooded Patapsco River, making recovery efforts more complicated.
As water continued rising, Weglein says she hugged the others there and feared she’d never see her 2-year-old son again.
When the water began to recede Sunday, at least 200 buildings had been damaged or destroyed. Main Street slopes dramatically toward the river and has always been susceptible to flooding. City leaders and State police will be present.
Two people were killed when the town about 14 miles west of Baltimore took on 6.5 inches of water Saturday night, most of it between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., sweeping away hundreds of cars, tearing away sidewalks and wrecking storefronts and building foundations.
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“Our staff is experienced in providing this type of help, and we are happy to provide whatever assistance we can give to help our colleagues in Maryland as they deal with this incident”, said PEMA Director Richard Flinn.
