Trees uprooted, homes sliced in half and thousands still left without power. The cleanup continues in parts of northern Maryland after a powerful storm leaves behind damage for miles.
Video: Morning cleanup efforts in Baltimore and Carroll counties
Baltimore County is one of the areas hardest hit in Tuesday night's storms. Residents are wondering if a tornado came through.
Tree companies were hard at work first thing Wednesday morning, trying to remove debris and chop up trees that snapped or were uprooted.
"It just looked like a tornado hit. I don't know if it's been confirmed. I've never seen this type of damage in the 16 years being here. I would imagine this is much more than a normal storm," homeowner Dan Lally said.
Dan Lally's front lawn was littered with downed trees. The storm took out their shed and a tree fell on their car. Jennifer Lally said it was scary.
"It was loud, and the winds were really loud, it just happened really fast. You're kind of in a state of reaction, just getting everybody safe, so it was really loud," Jennifer Lally said.
Residents in Jacksonville have been without power since Tuesday evening. They had to navigate around trees in the road and downed power lines.
"Fortunately, our early voting center at Jacksonville Senior Center was restored all of our voting sites are up and running. We had over 100 trees down across Baltimore County," Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski said.
Many traffic lights are out, making driving around in the area tricky. Gas stations can't sell gas and most businesses had to close.
SkyTeam 11 video shows damage in northern Baltimore County
However, John Hart, the owner of Brookside Market, is doing what he can by putting his food truck to work so people could get meals.
"It was hard for everyone to get home last night and hard to get to work, so I had to get the food truck going and we made breakfast sandwiches and coffee and had everything ready for anyone who needed it," Hart said.
Carroll County got hit with those high winds, first as the storm moved through.
On Wednesday morning, an 11 News crew found a telephone pole in Eldersburg snapped in half, and viewers also sent videos from their areas of storm damage.
One viewer sent in surveillance video from her patio. The high winds sent furniture into her pool.
There is a lot of damage in Harford County, especially the area near and around north Bel Air, following Tuesday's powerful storms.
Around the county is downed trees -- they are everywhere. Unfortunately, you had a few situations like this one where a large one crashed into a home.
From witness accounts, it seems it was more of a straight-line wind event rather than a tornadic event.
Straightline winds are strong winds that come out of a thunderstorm and, in some cases, can cause more damage than a tornado.
Just about everywhere you looked in Harford County Wednesday, there were downed trees, downed power lines and in some cases both.
"I heard a loud bang. I thought it was just lightning with all the rain that was coming, and then one of my neighbors knocked on my door and I came out and I saw that," Bel Air resident Mark Palmer said.
Palmer lost the huge 100-year-old oak tree in his front yard. His neighbor moved his car just in time.
"It was almost like a big dinosaur falling and a big thud," Bel Air resident Steven Kotowski said.
The damage is everywhere, including a tree down on a house on Washington Street in Havre de Grace, an uprooted tree that's more than 100 years old in Forest Hill and possible evidence of straight-line winds off of Sandy Hook Road.
"It's probably one of the nastier thunderstorms that we've had probably in the last 10 or 15 years," Harford County Executive Barry Glassman said.
Glassman said at one point more than 70 roads throughout the county were closed, blocked by downed trees and power lines. Department of Public Works crews worked through the night to get debris cleared, so power could be restored.
"A lot of downed trees, particularly on rural roads, even in Havre de Grace, Edgewood, like I say, no county -- no part of the county was really spared," Glassman said.
Including here off Edwards Lane where a house was destroyed after a large tree fell on it and around the corner at the Church Mouse Meadows Farm.
"The wind picked up all of a sudden there's all kinds of branches, hail that was hitting the windows and it rained like the dickens," Church Mouse Meadows Farm Trish Gilbert said.
Gilbert assessed the damage after losing a roof to one of her barns and down trees along her fence line, but she, like many others in Harford County, is thankful no one was hurt.
"We had fences down and trees down roof down but not the end of the world all fixable," she said.
No injuries or deaths were reported in the county.
Glassman said all Harford County public libraries will remain open until 7 p.m. if people need to charge phones or cool off.
Harford County Public Schools will be closed Thursday as cleanup continues.
School officials said there will be no summer school, summer programs (in-person elementary, middle, and high; ESY, ELL, and Summer Music and virtual like tutoring and Wellness Walking) or office operations. Summer meal sites will not be open as well.
Baltimore Gas and Electric provided an update on power restoration efforts following Tuesday's storms: "BGE continues to work to restore system damage from the severe storms that impacted our area late Tuesday afternoon and into the evening. Due to the widespread damage, more than 800 personnel from other utility companies in multiple states are actively working with BGE to restore power to impacted customers. Crews are staged out of three staging areas at Ripken Field, Timonium Fairgrounds, and BWI Airport.
"We are expecting to restore 90% of customers by tomorrow night. However, due to extensive damage from fallen trees, some equipment may not be accessible and repairs to damaged equipment may take longer than anticipated. Please assume that all wires are energized at lethal voltages. Never assume that a wire is safe to touch or be near. Call BGE at 1-877-778-2222 to report fallen electrical lines, power outages and gas odors."
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