WASHINGTON (AP) - Two possible tornadoes were reported in the Washington, D.C., region
on Saturday, as strong winds and heavy rains plowed through the area,
leaving tens of thousands without electricity.
Meteorologist Andy Woodcock of the National Weather Service said
tornado-like funnel clouds were reported Saturday afternoon in
Chantilly, in Fairfax County, Va., and in Prince George's County, Md.
The weather service hasn't confirmed they were tornadoes.
There were also reports of malfunctioning traffic lights and downed
trees and power lines in the area as thunder, heavy rains and winds
approaching 60 mph struck the region, part of a severe weather cold
front stretching across much of the East Coast.
In Prince George's County, emergency officials were attending to
about a dozen people who, as the storm arrived, made a panicked rush for
the exits at the Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro, said Mark Brady, a
spokesman for the county fire and emergency management agency. Three
people were being taken to the hospital for what appeared to be
non-life-threatening injuries at a county fair.
In northern Virginia, one person suffered minor injuries during a
partial stage collapse at the Rosslyn Jazz Festival, a fire department
spokesman said.
As of early Saturday evening, nearly 110,000 customers were without
electricity in northern Virginia, according to Dominion Electric. Pepco was reporting outages to roughly 60,000 customers in the District of
Columbia and Maryland's Prince George's and Montgomery counties. BGE was
reporting nearly 20,000 outages, most in Prince George's and Anne
Arundel counties.
In D.C., there were reports of about 10 downed
trees, including one that came down on a Southeast apartment building
undergoing construction, said Christopher Geldart, the district's
emergency management director. Six people had to be evacuated from the
building. There were no reports of major flooding, he said.
Fairfax County officials reported three home cave-ins because of
downed trees, a water rescue in the Potomac River and dozens of down
electrical wires, said Dan Schmidt, a fire department spokesman.
The storms also delayed the Miami Marlins-Washington Nationals game in the ninth inning.
