Intense heat and the threat of severe storms forced organizers of several Fourth of July celebrations in Maryland to call off events on Saturday, even as the Baltimore fireworks were still planned for 9 p.m. The weather left holiday plans hanging in the balance just as severe thunderstorm warnings spread across the region before 7 p.m.
Andrew Laird said the Baltimore County Fire Department received over 40 heat-related calls on Friday and transported 31 people to the hospital, with four people in serious condition. That came after temperatures and the heat index broke triple digits for the third day in a row, with the National Weather Service warning that hail, lightning and damaging winds could move through and that winds could reach 70 mph.
Takoma Park, Laurel and Severna Park all saw their Fourth of July events canceled or rescheduled, and Severna Park moved its event to July 11. The cancellations showed how quickly the holiday was being reshaped by weather on Saturday, not by the calendar.
The Baltimore fireworks remained on the schedule for 9 p.m. even though severe thunderstorm warnings were already in effect for the Baltimore area, Southern Maryland and areas just above the city, and the risk was expected to last through 8 p.m. That left a narrow window between the end of the warning period and the start time, and the source does not say whether the display went forward unchanged or was altered later in the evening.
Maryland was under an extreme heat warning, with the Baltimore area expected to hit 102 degrees and feel like 111. The Baltimore area was also under a code orange air quality alert, Baltimore was under a code red alert, and the suburbs of Washington were under code red alerts, while Baltimore extended hours at city pools and activated cooling centers and Anne Arundel County extended hours and days for its cooling centers.
The heat was already spilling into transportation. Some Amtrak trains in the Northeast were canceled, a Metrorail train derailed near College Park because of a heat-related track issue, one man was injured and 11 passengers evacuated, and northbound lanes on Interstate 97 in Anne Arundel County reopened Saturday morning after emergency repairs were needed Friday. Maryland’s holiday weekend was not just hot. It was being pulled apart by weather, with the only unresolved question whether the Baltimore fireworks could stay on course after dark.
