Flood damage on Colesville road at the Northwest Branch

On Wednesday there was some very heavy rain and the Northwest Branch flooded Colesville road, closing it for almost two days. When the floodwaters subsided there were debris and silt piled up and part of the sidewalk was washed away. These pictures were taken on Friday at lunch, approximately 24 hours after the road re-opened.

A big pile of sand has been cleared from the road and piled up.  Behind that you can see a fence that has washed up against the road. The leftmost lane of southbound MD-29 was still closed.

Part of the sidewalk washed away exposing a number of formerly buried cables.  They have already started marking the cables for repair. They have been quick to start fixing things, you can't see it in this picture, but they have already smoothed out the washed away section.  The rightmost lane of MD-29 North was still closed, causing a significant traffic back up even in the middle of the day.

The northwest branch from the bridge looking downstream.  The water level isn't back to normal but it is much lower than during the flood.

You can see a pile of dead wood just on the other side of the guardrail.  I suspect it was cleared off the road and dumped there

A large pile of sand that was cleared from the road.  You can see the washed out sidewalk just beyond it.

Power problems again

Storms, power outages, dark intersections, power lines down across the metro rail tracks, it certainly has been an eventful week here in Silver Spring, MD.

Just when you thought it was safe to move through Silver Spring.... No, it isn't shark week (that's next week, but Chompie has been keeping an eye on things). Today's thunderstorm brought a few more power outages and sent another batch of traffic signals dark. The police had a handle on things here at Colesville Road and East-West Highway this evening. More troubling was how some power lines along Spring Street fell across the metro tracks and a train drove partway over them. No one was hurt but 41 people were stuck on the train. Above them, along Spring St, the police had closed the road, the fire trucks were there, and Pepco was trying to fix things.