Around Maryland

Every time Marcia Spencer walks inside the bright and colorful HER Resiliency Center in Fells Point, she knows she’s in a safe space. “It’s my home away from home,” said Spencer, an Outreach Associate at HER Resiliency Center. The center is a home much different than what Spencer once knew. She spent years struggling with addiction on the streets in Park Heights. That’s where she first met Natasha Guynes, the founder and president of HER Resiliency Center.

Residents surveyed damage to their neighborhoods on Thursday and work crews deployed across Montgomery County to clear uprooted trees, restore power and reopen blocked roads after a “supercell” storm unleashed multiple tornadoes that swept across Maryland the night before. Emergency responders worked swiftly Wednesday evening to rescue people from damaged homes and sent at least five people to the hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.

Construction is beginning on the next phase of Ellicott City’s Safe and Sound flood mitigation plan — a 5.5 million gallon flood retention pond, which is the third and largest pond to be constructed since the plan started in 2018. Howard County Executive Calvin Ball was flanked by state and local officials as they ceremonially broke ground Tuesday on the H-4 Pond along the north side of Frederick Road, west of Route 29.

Montgomery County officials reported Thursday morning that six people suffered minor injuries, but no one was killed when at least two likely tornadoes ripped through Montgomery County on Wednesday night. At least eight people were displaced from their homes by the thunderstorm, according to Earl Stoddard, the county’s assistant chief adminstrative officer.

Hanging on a pilon along Ego Alley in Annapolis, Maryland, is what looks like a piece of PVC pipe with a small solar panel attached to it. There are more of them hanging around the city, and soon they’ll be up and down Anne Arundel County, as well as in Charles County, Baltimore City and throughout the Eastern Shore.

Washington County Public Schools unveiled its new vision and core values the county intends to address and implement over the next five years through the county’s strategic plan. The strategic plan focuses on four priority areas announced at Tuesday’s Washington County Board of Education work session: student success; access and opportunities; culture, safety and wellness; and community engagement.

Charles Schultz was sitting in his living room when it sounded like a bomb went off. Then the sky turned dark. Throughout his 50-plus years living in Curtis Bay — an isolated community wedged into the southern corner of Baltimore — he’d gotten used to seeing soot pile up on his windowsill. Now coal dust was raining down onto his street, a tower smoldering on the CSX coal pier just a stone’s throw from his doorstep.