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charlottsville, extreme weather, KKK, local news, meteorology, nazis, news, news report, rain, report, riots, severe rainstorm, severe thunderstorm, tornado, weather, white supremacists
On August 12, 2017, a few neighborhoods in Glen Burnie were hit by a severe storm. At least two power lines were knocked out by fallen trees, a garage was crushed, siding was ripped off houses, three trees were uprooted, and that was just on my street. BGE arrived very shortly after the storm ended, needing to tend to the wires sparking in the middle of the road, and it took them them several hours to restore electricity to our street. My house lost power around 6:15pm, and we didn’t regain it until a little after 3am the next morning.
Strangely enough, that Saturday didn’t seem like it was going to be anything special. My siblings came over for pizza and games, bringing four dogs to add to the three already living at my house. The temperatures were mild, but the humidity was atrocious! The dogs would take turns diving in our kiddie pool before chasing each other around the yard. Once they’d tired themselves out, we went inside for dinner. We didn’t notice when the rain started, but we couldn’t ignore the storm when the lightning and thunder began. Our bay window points out to the street, but we couldn’t even see the yard. It was raining so fiercely, the only thing we could see was a dripping wall of silver grey. Then the lights went out.
Our street doesn’t go black very often. There’s only a few times in my two decades living there that I can remember the lights even blinking. Even though it was a novelty in my youth, it still meant it was a serious storm. My siblings wisely decided to wait out the storm in the safety of our childhood home, and my brother moved away from the windows. The rain was propelled under our porch roofs and through the door. The carpet around our front door was soaked. Both sides of our back door were dripping wet. It was a few hours before the weather calmed down enough for my siblings to be able to leave.
My brother left as soon as he could, eager to go home and check on his wife. He called from his car to warn the others that the roads were trashed with debris and an electrical line was lying in the middle of the road. Everyone went outside to see the damage.
Even with our flashlights, it was hard to see, but the streets were covered with branches, tops of trees were twisted off, our electrical post was broken, and wires were being pulled from our house. My home was extremely lucky; the only damage we suffered was the loss of electricity and a branch took out our garden fence. One neighbors weren’t so lucky. Our neighbor’s tree crushed their fence and left a deep pit in their backyard. Another neighbor had a branch penetrate their roof. A nearby church had several trees fall, barely missing the actual building, but crushing their handicap ramp. A shed at another house was flattened. The next day, I took a walk around the neighborhood and took pictures of the damage, but clean up had already been in progress for several hours.
Several people in the neighborhood have speculated that a tornado touched down on our street, but I haven’t been able to find any news reports saying it was even a severe rainstorm. Because of the power outages, we couldn’t watch the news as it was happening, so we have no idea what hit us. There were gale force winds, heavy rain, thunderstorms, but I can’t find any record of what it was officially. The closest I’ve found is a history report from a nearby radar, but that lists the winds as only 37mph. I’m no meteorologist, so I could be wrong, but that doesn’t sound like strong enough winds to take down three healthy oak trees.
I know my neighborhood didn’t suffer any kind of special catastrophe. The local news reports are swamped with the riots in Charlottsville, and I agree that the tragedy needs to be covered. The KKK, Nazis, and white supremacist groups should be eradicated, because they’re no better than ISIS terrorists. But just because there was tragedy doesn’t mean other people don’t exist. I still hear chainsaws and beeping work trucks around my house. There are still some people with zero to partial electricity. Do they not exist because the KKK are feeling empowered? I just want to know what hit my home. Was it a tornado? Or was it just a freak severe storm? I might have been in the middle of it, but I couldn’t see it, and I want to know!
If you find anything about the storm that hit Glen Burnie, Maryland on August 12, 2017, please link the article or report in the comments down below. I sincerely can’t find anything, and I hate not knowing.
*** The KKK, Nazis, and White Supremacists are human trash. ***