A Message from Frederick County Emergency Management:
Central and southern Frederick County experienced a FLASH FLOOD EMERGENCY yesterday evening starting just after 7pm. A broad band of very heavy precipitation and hail moved from north to south across the county, and when it reached roughly the middle of the county it stalled and dumped almost seven inches of rain in a little over two hours. Working with National Weather Service meteorologists we issued a FLASH FLOOD EMERGENCY warning via the emergency alert and wireless emergency alert systems. The rapid rainfall caused widespread impacts to roadways where they cross drainages and even impacts to areas where stormwater drainage does not normally occur at a significant level. Over 300 9-1-1 calls were handled and almost 900 ten-digit emergency overflow or non-emergency calls were also handled by Frederick County and Frederick police public safety telecommunicators in a little under five hours. By 1:00 am over 55 flood water rescues had been performed by fire and rescue and law enforcement staff and volunteers, with mutual aid assistance coming from Carroll, Montgomery, Washington and Loudoun counties. Over 40 structures were reported to have experienced flooding.
The Frederick County Division of Emergency Management will be working today to build a more complete picture of the storm’s impact. If your organization suffered any damage due to the storm, please send a brief email to eoc@frederickcountymd.gov including:
1. The address or described location of the damage;
2. a brief description of the damage;
3. a (non-binding) estimate of the dollar loss;
4. a point of contact for follow up
5. whether you need any assistance
Thank you to all on the list who were involved in the response yesterday evening. Our community pulled together to respond to a rapidly evolving, difficult, dangerous situation, with the public safety agencies doing a heroic job of removing dozens from the floodwaters. Now we have to clean up and try to return the county to normal.
NWS advises that the forecast for the remainder of the week includes the potential for between 4 and 6 inches of additional rain over the next three days. While it may not fall as rapidly as yesterday evening, with the ground as saturated as it is it will not take major rainfall to bring flood impacts back to our area.
Jack Markey, Director
Division of Emergency Management
Frederick County, MD 5370 Public Safety Place, 3rd Floor
Frederick, MD 21704 jmarkey@frederickcountymd.gov
Send large files to https://www.hightail.com/u/jmarkey VOICE 301-600-6790
FAX 301-600-6026