Elkridge Superfresh Comes Crumbling Down

After its parent company announced plans to close the Elkridge earlier this week, the grocery store was dealt another blow on Saturday evening, when one of its walls collapsed onto a pickup truck parked outside.

No one was injured as a result of the incident, said Howard County Fire Battalion Chief Gordon Wallace, who stated that weather was a factor.

Howard County was under a for most of the day, with winds gusting up to 55 miles an hour, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory.

Wallace said the fire department responded to reports of a vehicle struck by a piece of the grocery store's façade at approximately 5:45 p.m.

The vehicle’s owner, Bud Sheridan of Millsboro, DE, estimated that approximately 30 feet of wall toppled onto his pickup truck, which he parked in the loading zone while he went inside to help his friend collect grocery bags. Initially, he said he thought the large boom was thunder outside.

Sheridan, who owns a construction company, is stationed in Elkridge while completing a local project. Pointing to cracks in the Superfresh building's structure that he believed deemed it unsafe, he said, “I would close the store.”

Store manager David Johnson declined to comment on the incident or future plans for the Elkridge supermarket. But court documents released Wednesday reveal that the store may indeed close.

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, which owns Superfresh and declared bankruptcy in December 2010, included the Elkridge location among 25 stores it hopes to shed to emerge from chapter 11.

Also on the list are Arbutus and Ellicott City locations.

Selling the 25 Superfresh stores is part of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company's restructuring plan, which it submitted to the courts on April 13. The plan will be reviewed April 28 in New York bankruptcy court, according to legal documents.

Currently, the Elkridge store remains open with a section taped off where part of its façade used to be.

This article was updated from a previous version to include more information and a video interview with Bud Sheridan.