BERLIN A major power outage
that covered large portions of north-
ern Worcester County last weekend
left lingering effects heading into the
workweek, including a small, self-in-
duced blackout by Delmarva Power
Monday night.
Beginning Saturday afternoon
around 4:30, the outage blanketed
much of northern Worcester includ-
ing the entire town of Berlin, most of
West Ocean City and parts of south
Ocean City. The blackout was caus-
ed by damage to the Delmarva
Power transmission line by Satur-
day's high winds, which were unoffi-
cially clocked at 86 mph by a Berlin
resident's unofficial backyard wea-
ther station. The most damage oc-
curred close to Atlantic General
Hospital on Route 113 where tele-
phone poles were toppled.
"Over near AGH, the Delmarva
Power transmission line that comes
out of the Worcester sub at Ocean
City Boulevard and Route 50, the
transmission line comes out of there
and feeds down Route 113 heading
through Berlin and then heading to
Ocean City. They had some poles
break off during that storm Saturday
so we lost the transmission feed to
the town," said Tim Lawrence, di-
rector of Electric Utility Department.
While the town purchases its
electricity from a company located
in Florida, that power is routed by
Delmarva Power and the damage to
the transmission line effectively
ended all electric in Berlin for sever-
al hours.
Many residents had power back
by 9 p.m., but a part of North Main
Street, Harrison Avenue and West
Street was in the dark for at least
another hour.
"The entire town went down be-
cause we only have one transmis-
sion line that feeds here," said Law-
rence.
Power was restored to all affect-
ed by 11:30 p.m. Saturday. But the
storm that caused the outage injur-
ed the transmission line to the point
the 69,000-volt line had to be de-en-
ergized Monday night around mid-
night while repairs were finished.
That cut power to the town for a
short period over night.
Besides the damage to the trans-
mission line, Saturday's storm
sheared off five poles, locked out
four substations and left roughly
20,000 county residents without
power at one point, according to
Delmarva Power. There was mod-
erate damage within the town of
Berlin, including a badly damaged
secondary line on Franklin Avenue
as well as number uprooted trees.
"I'm not sure if they classified it
as a tornado or just high winds, but
we had several trees uprooted in
town, mailboxes pulled up out of the
ground, fences tore up," said Law-
rence.
AGH and the Berlin Nursing
Home were running on backup gen-
erators until 10 a.m. on Sunday.
Weekend Storm Results In Power Outage For Thousands
Visible signs of the storm were present throughout Berlin on Sunday mor-
ning, including a storage barn on Buckingham Lane that lost part of its roof
and multiple light poles that were damaged in the Berlin Nursing Home park-
ing lot.
Photos by Steve Green
Page 20
January 17, 2014
The Dispatch/Maryland Coast Dispatch
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