Hanna delivers a light blow

Luke Boone of North Beach seems faced with a dilemma at a crosswalk in Chesapeake Beach on Saturday as flooding closes the intersection of 5th and Bay Streets. (Baltimore Sun photo by Doug Kapustin / September 6, 2008)

Although it killed at least 100 people in Haiti and whipped up wind, tornadoes and drenching rain after making its U.S. landfall in the Carolinas, Tropical Storm Hanna lost much of its sizzle yesterday by the time it moved up the coast and doused Maryland.

The storm was blamed for one death, that of the driver of a sport utility vehicle that hit a tree after veering off Interstate 95 near Powder Mill Road in Prince George's County. A child in the vehicle was injured.

Heavy rain caused hazardous driving conditions and numerous other accidents around the state, as well as minor flooding. Some 80,000 BGE customers lost power, though all but about 10,400 were hooked up again by 11:30 last night, according to the utility's Web site.

The National Weather Service recorded 1.72 inches of rain at BWI Marshall Airport, 2 inches in Towson, 2.83 inches in Jacksonville in Baltimore County, and 8.3 inches in Woodbridge, Va, in eastern Prince William County, the highest total in the area in the area covered by the weather service's regional headquarters in Sterling, Va., said forecaster Jim Decarufel.

Into the evening, flood warnings remained in effect for Harford, Cecil, Montgomery, Caroline, Talbot and Queen Anne's counties. But there seemed to be consensus that the storm was much weaker than the buildup to it had suggested.

"So far, it's a nonevent," Richard Bayles, Ocean City's deputy director of emergency management, said at midafternoon, despite a steady downpour, wind gusts of 63 mph, pounding waves and intersections on St. Louis Avenue that had to be closed because of flooding. "We haven't had any problems. We've had no injuries."

Similar tales were repeated elsewhere yesterday, especially in areas where residents, wishing to avoid the destruction left by Tropical Storm Isabel in 2003, had spent the previous few days preparing for Hanna.

"You're gun-shy because you don't want to lose everything again," Charlene Kotrla said while watching waves lapping a few feet from her waterfront home on Millers Island, in eastern Baltimore County. She and her husband, Buddy, sounded relieved that the water had not inundated their property this time, unlike five years ago, when the couple lost everything to Isabel and had to be rescued by boat.

At City Dock in Annapolis, which was submerged after Isabel, sandbags were piled in front of doors and low windows. At Market House, an arcade of kiosks destroyed in the last storm, long rubber barriers were positioned to hold back floodwaters. Other businesses, including the Storm Bros. ice cream store, were closed.

To Rich Allyn, a sea captain from Oregon, a bit of wind and rain was hardly an anomaly, even if it came with dire predictions. "This kind of weather is typical on the Oregon coast," said Allyn, who had been visiting his daughter, Vanessa, in Washington. "We're just glad the streets aren't flooded."

They were in Chesapeake Beach, but not disastrously so. The stop-and-start rain caused water to gather in the streets around the town's welcome center and police blocked them off. Nearby, three boys stood shin-deep in large puddles, skipping stones across the surface. A pair of dogs splashed around.

About 3 p.m. on Millers Island, John Dey said he had taken a few steps to prepare his home for whatever deluge might come. He had his generator ready. He'd lifted some items in his garage onto higher shelves. He secured the table and chairs on his deck. And he stayed tuned to weather reports.

"I won't lose everything again," Dey said, as the brown water of the bay churned and lashed at the bulkhead in his backyard. Dey, who has lived on Millers Island since 2000, had just finished remodeling his house two weeks before Isabel struck, he said.

This time around, Dey was expecting to see water in his garage but, as of yesterday afternoon, it hadn't happened.

"I'm relieved," he said, "it's not worse."

Baltimore Sun reporters Gus G. Sentementes, Justin Fenton and Chris Guy, and the Associated Press contributed to this article.

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Related topic galleries: Tropical Storms, Floods, Woodbridge, Imperial and Royal Matters, Weather Warnings, Prince William County, Prince George's County

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