Yes, Lexington Park, There Was a Hurricane

By Jay Friess
Editor

The talk on the TwitterBook this morning is full of snark, mockery and, yes, even cavalier callousness.

“What hurricane?”  a family member asked before declaring, “Frankenstorm laid an egg!”

“I lost power for a whole 15 minutes,” another friend stated.

Over on the SoMD.com forums, someone asked, “Do we really need all this coverage for a little wind and rain?”

Hurricane Sandy was, empirically, a bad storm. SMECO estimates that approximately 39,000 of its customers in Southern Maryland were affected as the storm reached its apex late last night. More than 1,500 homes in the 20653 zip code were without power at one point (more than 280 are still without power as of this posting). And we have it on good authority (and on video) from our correspondents that things got a bit hairy down by the shore yesterday.

Perhaps after experiencing Hurricane Irene in August 2011 and a powerful derecho storm in June, our threshold for what is considered “bad” has stretched. Seriously, if the intersection of Route 5 and Indian Bridge Road in Great Mills doesn’t flood out, can it really be considered a proper hurricane?

The disaster tolerance appears to be rising nationally. The desperate cries for attention up and down the Mid-Atlantic Coast last night resulted in a bit of a Photoshop arms race.

Despite the incredulity of the local commentariat, we did manage to find a few examples of Sandy’s impact in the 8th District. Behold this proof of the power of Mother Nature, ye mortals, and despair.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTGH6GyLQHU]