Power outage curtails Calvert board meeting

It was during the presentation of a proclamation for National Poppy Day that the lights went out in the Calvert County commissioners’ hearing room.

Representatives from a local American Legion had just presented Quilts of Valor to Mark Willis, county administrator, and David Payne, assistant sheriff, (both Willis and Payne are Marine Corps veterans) that the room in the Calvert County Courthouse in Prince Frederick went dark.

While the commissioners completed the ceremonial presentations on the agenda, with no electricity or capability to stream and record the meeting, the remaining business items on the day’s agenda had to be scuttled. The board then adjourned.

Commissioner Earl F. “Buddy” Hance (R) said, by law, the meeting has to be recorded.

Outside the courthouse, motorists traveling on Route 2/4 in Prince Frederick also had challenges with the outage, which reportedly started at around 10:30 a.m.

Power lines were reported down in the vicinity of Route 2/4 and Duke Street.

According to Calvert County Sheriff’s Office alerts, southbound Route 2/4 was closed at the Route 231 intersection to the south entrance of Main Street.

Several traffic lights were out and motorists were advised to treat all lighted intersections as four-way stops.

Sometime after 11 a.m. the power was restored. The Prince Frederick area experienced brief residual traffic congestion before things returned to normal.

According to Calvert County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Kristen Leitch, the incident that resulted in the outage “involved a logging truck that may have been piled too high and brought down the power lines.”

The county commissioners, who were not scheduled to meet next week due to the Memorial Day holiday, will hold a special meeting May 29 starting at 10 a.m.