MULTIMEDIA: Hurricane Clean-Up Continues on Norman Avenue

Barbara Kines is used to seeing the old trees rock and sway in her Lutherville neighborhood.

The anxious feeling of potential has subsided after decades of living on Norman Avenue where broken branches and power outages are common after a little hard wind and rain.

“We’ve been through a lot already,” she said casually Tuesday afternoon as a row of tree removal trucks moved down her street. She looked over at her next door neighbor’s home, now partially crushed by a thick tree.

Norman Avenue, a small back road in Lutherville’s historic neighborhood near York Road, was particularly battered by Hurricane Irene.

Major power lines were knocked over, two tall trees were uprooted and 141 surrounding homes are still without power after a night of high winds and rain. The avenue looked like a wire jungle the morning after.

Residents were urged to stay indoors as BGE crews assessed the danger posed by live power lines snaking along the street and draped over tree limbs.

Kines, who has lived in her Norman Avenue home since 1963, said she and her neighbors have been bonding more sense the hurricane.

She recalled a very shocking morning after.

“I stepped out onto the back porch, about 7 o’clock Sunday morning,” Kines said. “I had been sitting in the living room watching these trees really blow and I thought to myself, I wonder how that big one is doing.”

It wasn’t doing well.

The large tree had been uprooted sometime overnight and crashed through her neighbor’s home.

To make matters more alarming, the tree crushed the bedroom of a young girl who lived there, according to the girl’s uncle Sonny, who declined to give his last name. The young girl decided to spend the night in her mother’s bedroom, which was spared by Irene’s onslaught.

No one was injured.

“I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked,” said Nancy Hylind, who owns a home on Norman Avenue.

Hylind returned to the affected street Tuesday afternoon with her camera in hand. A woman renting Hylind’s home is still unable to move her car from the driveway, which is blocked by a snapped utility pole.

 “I feel fortunate. It could’ve been a lot worse,” Hylind said.

There are at least 141 homes in the Lutherville area that are still without power. Hylind said she was told by BGE that electricity would be returned Friday, “at the outside chance.”