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First snow of season packs little punch; Charles spared
One major crash reported, few lose power
Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by ANGELA BRECK
Andrew Mills, 16, of Bel Alton unwinds twine as he prepares to tie a tree to the roof of a car. Mills was working during Saturday's snowstorm selling Christmas trees in White Plains for Boy Scout Troop 410.
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The county's first snowfall Saturday lightly blanketed grassy areas, made local roads slick and caused at least one serious traffic accident in Welcome.
The storm began as chilly rain Saturday morning, but quickly turned to snow by mid-morning and tapered off by sunset in most areas of Charles County. The accumulation swung from a light dusting in Dentsville near the St. Mary's County border to 2 inches in Waldorf and 2.5 inches in Bryans Road, said Richard Hitchen, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Sterling, Va., office.
"The temperature remained above freezing for most of the event so that kept the accumulation down," he said Monday.
Although Charles County didn't get hammered by the storm as did areas farther north such as Montgomery County, the slippery road conditions did cause at least one serious accident — on Route 6 near Blossom Point Road in Welcome — and several fender benders.
The accident occurred when two vehicles slammed into each other between 5 and 5:30 p.m. after the driver of a vehicle traveling east on Route 6 hit a patch of ice and swerved into a motorist traveling west on the road, said Maryland State Police trooper William Posey.
The people in both vehicles received serious but not life-threatening injuries.
Two were transported to Civista Medical Center in La Plata and one person was taken to the Prince George's Hospital Center's shock-trauma unit in Cheverly, he said.
Charles County Department of Public Facilities employees were deployed in four trucks to spread salt on especially slick roads, including Billingsley Road in White Plains, Young Road in Bryantown and Middletown Road, Acton Lane and St. Charles Parkway in Waldorf, said Amy Calvin, spokeswoman for the county government. Forty tons of salt were used during the storm at a cost of $2,276, she said.
Only a few scattered power outages were reported during the storm, said Tom Dennison, spokesman for Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative in Hughesville.
"We had a couple of traffic-related outages but we didn't lose any feeders," he said. "We had no major outages."
