As a blizzard buries Montgomery County under 15 to 21 inches of snowfall, county emergency response personnel are doing their best to weather the blizzard-like conditions today, dispatching additional personnel to vehicles and partnering with plow trucks to address residents' needs.

While county police address calls for service, including a dispatch of four all-terrain Humvee vehicles by the National Guard, residents are asked to expect significant delays or in some cases no response, said Montgomery County Police spokesman Lt. Phil Raum. Residents are being asked to keep the streets clear for plow trucks and stay in their homes, Raum added.

"Even with regular four-wheel drive the backstreets are inaccessible so people are pretty much on their own to take care of themselves," he said when reached for comment Saturday morning. "We're not going to be able to respond to everything that people may need; obviously if there is an emergency we're going to respond as best we can, but we're asking people to expect significant delays."

Downed power lines are by far the biggest problem facing the county, Raum added, saying 75,000 Pepco customers were without power as of 10:30 a.m.

The Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service is currently addressing downed power lines with assistance from police, said fire/rescue spokesman Capt. Oscar Garcia. So far no significant emergencies have been reported for rescue personne, and additional personnel are being alloted to rescue vehicles to meet the demands of the snow, he said.

"When there's a typical call for somebody sick inside their home, usually two officers are dispatched to that call, but now we're sending four to five ... while the first two rescue officers work with the patient, we can have the additional crew working to shovel out the driveway or prep the transport," Garcia said. "We had a couple of trees down in front of entrances to houses and apartment complexes but we are equipped with chainsaws so we have dealt with those."

Montgomery County announced a general declaration of emergency at 5:30 a.m. Saturday, closing all county government services and facilities including libraries, community centers and Ride On services. Police, fire and rescue, department of corrections and of course snow plow services will continue operations, according to a county press release.

A handful of Damascus volunteers are doing their part to help essential police, fire and rescue and snow plow employees. Operating out of the Damascus Fire Department Activity Center on Lewis Drive, volunteers began handing out food and drinks to plow truck drivers, police and other emergency personnel at 6 p.m. Friday and began again today at 9 a.m., said coordinator Allan Rea.

"They're able to actually sit down and have a meal here to relax and not drive," he said. "We have a group of about seven loyal volunteers that have been helping us out, and we're really just trying to provide a good service to the people who have to be out in the snow."

So far Rea and the volunteers have served more than 90 emergency and snow plow personnel since Friday, said Rea's wife, Sharon Rea, who said this is the first time such a service has been implemented in Damascus since the record snowfall in the winter of 1996.