Waters rise, trees fall in weekend storms
Silver Spring saw highest rainfall, historic White's Ferry saw river flooding
County residents continue to clean up from weekend storms with heavy rain that brought downed trees and flooding to the area.
"Lots of water, lots of mud," said Jennifer Queen, barn manager at Potomac Stables at White's Ferry and Elmer School roads in Dickerson. "Fortunately we're not at the river so we're not that bad, but we have puddles in places we're not supposed to have puddles."
"The combination of saturated ground and then you've got rain to the tune of 3-plus inches, combine that with snow melting and that's a recipe for flooding, some major flooding," Prinzivalli said. "That's kind of a three-prong attack."
Heavy rainfall contributed to flooding of the Potomac River at historic White's Ferry near Dickerson.
Malcolm Brown, who owns White's Ferry Store near the ferry dock, could not be reached for comment.
MacKenzie travelled down River Road as far as she could Monday, she said, and reached all but her last two stops, then turned around. Her last delivery is about ½ mile from the ferry. She expected the ferry service to be back in business before long.
"They're pretty quick about it," she said. "As soon as the water goes down, they're pretty good about it. They get it up and running as soon as they can."
Matt Logan, president of the C&O Canal Trust, and volunteers spent Saturday placing sandbags around Lockhouse 6, a fully restored and furnished historic house where a canal lock tender and his family once lived, near Glen Echo and the Bethesda neighborhood of Brookmont. Six hundred bags forming a perimeter around the lockhouse kept the water at bay, he said. The lockhouse suffered no damage.
Christina Merriam of Quail Valley in Montgomery Village said that she and her fiancé woke at 2 a.m. Saturday "to what sounded like a big sheet of ice falling off the roof or maybe a big bang of thunder." Looking out the window, they saw a giant tree fallen in a neighbor's yard across the street. Tree limbs ripped open the house roof, shattered the bedroom window and tore off siding, she said.
Despite downed trees and flooding, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Services had a non-eventful week, Capt. Oscar Garcia said. No swift water rescue was needed and no injuries connected to the weather were reported.
County police received seven calls for high water between 10 a.m. and noon Sunday, said Lucille Baur, a county police spokeswoman. The calls came from Rockville, Brookeville, Silver Spring, Gaithersburg, Bethesda and Germantown.
Overflow from the rain caused the mess at Potomac Stables, which are about 1½ miles from the historic ferry, Queen said.
"All of our fields are flooded and there's just water standing everywhere," Queen said Monday.
Tractors have been getting stuck and farmhands used a horse to pull a spreader out to the field to spread manure so that vehicles can travel, she said.
The episode is driving up costs, she said.
"It's causing a little bit more work," she said. "Although I have to say, it's better than the snow."
Staff Writer Erin Donaghue contributed to this report.