Strong storms cause minor damage

Strong storms rolled through the area Wednesday night, after a day of record high temperatures.

Fire crews in Anne Arundel County handled two house fires within about an hour of each other.

The family that lives a home along Coventry place in Crownsville arrived to find the house filled with black smoke.

They called 911; crews had to use a secondary water supply in the rural area -- but the fire was confined to the basement.

One firefighter suffered minor injuries when the floor gave way.  “With a basement fire you just have to be very cautious about where you step because you don't know where the weak spots are, and luckily the floor opened up very gently and slid him down instead of caving in all of a sudden,” said Battalion Chief Steve Thompson of the Anne Arundel County Fire Department.

Investigators believe that fire, and another one in the Arnold area, were both caused by lightning strikes.

The storm also caused trouble for the afternoon commute -- the Bay Bridge had to be shut down in both directions because of high winds.

And in Harford County high winds brought down a large tree along Belair Road just south of the Harford Mall.

Customers did not lose power; the tree only took out cable and phone lines.  But traffic had to be blocked off while crews removed the tree.

Lilyana Gdychynski lives next door.  She got a reverse 911 call from Harford County Emergency Services about a half-hour before the storm hit -- telling her to take cover.

“Everybody's ok. I'm happy that emergency services that always gives us a call and let us know what we had to do and we followed their direction,” she said.

Nearly 10,000 BGE customers did lose power last night; most of them were restored within a few hours.