Power Outages Strike Elkridge Cooling Shelters, Senior Apartments

The  of Howard County Library closed early on July 3 because of a partial power outage.

Staff said the power went completely out in the library and adjacent at approximately 3 p.m. Some power returned but not all. Air conditioning was off in the senior center. 

At 5:42 p.m., County Executive Ken Ulman tweeted that the library would be closing early, at 6 p.m. due to "partial power failure." 

During a week when more than 60,000 people in the county lost power, the Elkridge library and senior center had been designated "cooling centers" by Howard County Government.

Citizens seeking refuge from the heat should explore , said Alexandra Bresani, spokeswoman at the county's public information office.

"If there's no electricity, people have options," said Bresani, who noted that at the height of demand, the county opened 19 cooling centers. "They can go to another."

The cooling centers nearest Elkridge that will be open July 4:

• Bain Center (5470 Ruth Keeton Way) in Columbia; open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Ellicott City Senior Center (9401 Frederick Rd.) in Ellicott City; open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Across Rowanberry Drive, residents of , an apartment for seniors, said they were without power as well Tuesday afternoon.

Colonial Landing resident Nancy Waybright, 78, was sitting near the entrance to the complex at approximately 4:30 p.m. with many of her neighbors.

Waybright said she was surprised that the power went out Tuesday, July 3, several days after Friday's storm.

“We didn’t lose power this whole time,” said Waybright of the Rowanberry Drive apartment complex. “They must be working on something around here."

BGE—which has reportedly restored power to more than 52,000 people in Howard County since the June 29 storm—listed Elkridge as one of the areas where it had crews working Tuesday.

As of Tuesday evening, BGE had restored power to 80 percent of customers who had lost power, according to a company-issued statement. It said that "outages affecting public safety and critical facilities remain a priority, including 911 centers, hospitals and pumping stations."

BGE vice president of communications Rob Gould told Elkridge Patch that libraries, senior centers and senior/assisted living facilities are not considered in the same category as hospitals.

"It's only hospitals," said Gould. "If you give every single constituency priority, you’ll never be able to efficiently restore power. We restore feeders—you can have a senior center, house or business on one [feeder line]; you can get all these customers at once."

Continued Gould: "It certainly is not meant to dismiss any one constituency, but really in situations like this, where you’re looking to restore power as quickly and safely as possible, you have to continue to restore power in the most efficient way."