Crews continue to pick up dozens of downed trees and work to restore power after a severe thunderstorm on Tuesday evening blew through several communities along the Route 1 corridor including College Park, Berwyn Heights and Greenbelt.
A storm that extended from Tennessee to Maine hit three towns on the corridor particularly hard with hail hitting Berwyn Heights, high winds uprooting trees and splitting a College Park home in the 5000 block of Lakeland Road down the middle.
The winds, which were recorded as high as 90 mph in College Park, also knocked out power lines, leaving more than 44,000 customers in Prince George’s County without electricity. As of Thursday evening, more than 10,000 were still without power.
These straight-line winds, caused by air being dragged along with precipitation, have the same force as a low-end EF-1 tornado but without the rotation.
The storm left only about a half-inch of rain, but there were reports of quarter-sized hail.
Prince George’s County Fire and Emergency Medical Services received 360 calls for service as a result of the storm, and the University of Maryland suspended in-person classes on Wednesday as campus crews cleaned up damage.
This Pepco outage map shows communities along the corridor which are still affected.
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