Hurricane Irene - aftermath update from the Mayor's office

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Baltimore City still has almost 60,000 households without power. BGE regular crews stopped working at 8pm and they will have small crews that will respond to emergencies over night. The Mayor's office has asked BGE to prioritize certain public safety resources, senior facilities and others dealing with vulnerable populations.

We are emphasizing that any food left in un-powered refrigerators and freezers which required refrigeration should be disposed of when it passes the 24 hour time period when it would still be safe to consume. 

We are checking on all senior centers and providing water and ice as needed. We are opening our traditional code red shelters for those residents who may need to get a place to charge phones, get cool, get water, etc.  (In the 4^th District, our usual Code Red shelter is the Govans Multi-Purpose Center, at 5225 York Road; as soon as I have confirmation that it is open, I’ll pass that on...)

There are still approximately 160 traffic intersections that are without power. Police and STEOs working some of the busier ones and we are also using generators at others. We are reminding residents to treat broken signals as a four way stop. 

There are a number of street lights that are out and we are working with Police to get some light towers into some of these areas.  Police and Fire are both acting in a support capacity. 

Rec and Park crews had hoped to finish today all of the 311 calls for trees blocking roadways, but got another one hundred and fifty-one calls today. Once they get done with trees blocking roadways, they will focus on trees blocking sidewalks and then they will focus on CITY trees on private property.

More updates as we get them.
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