The town of Berlin on Maryland’s Eastern Shore is used to extreme weather and coastal storms. But the powerful nor’easter that traveled through the region on Sunday evening knocked out power to the entire town for several hours.

“This is worse than some hurricanes that I’ve seen,” said Mayor Zack Tyndall, who was born and raised on the Eastern Shore.

At least a foot of snow — and up to 18 inches in some spots — fell on the town in Worcester County, said Eswar Iyer, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s Wakefield office.

The mayor, who was out surveying the damage on Monday morning, said he has seen close to 20 inches in some areas.

The entire town, which is 20 minutes west of Ocean City and home to about 5,000 people, lost power around 9 p.m. on Sunday. As of noon on Monday, the city and Delmarva Power had restored electricity to about 70% of customers.

“Now we’re just working through, trying to allocate the resources to make sure that we can open things back up,” Tyndall said.

Delmarva Power didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the outage.

The impact of the storm varied widely across the state, with some spots in the Baltimore region getting just a few inches of snow. There were some travel disruptions, and many school districts were closed or switched to virtual learning on Monday. Parts of the Eastern Shore saw blizzard conditions, and coastal towns were battered by wind gusts up to 50 mph.

The power went out at Darian Schenk’s apartment complex near Seahawk Road around 11 p.m. on Sunday, she said. With temperatures in the 30s, she and her husband had their 6-year-old sleep in their bed and their 4-month-old daughter in a crib next to them. She’s too young to sleep on the bed with them, Schenk said. So they dressed her in several layers, then a sleep sack with some hand warmers.

Power came back on around 3:30 a.m., Schenk said, but other services are still down. Their water wasn’t working for several hours either, she said, and it initially came out brown.

Berlin’s first responders and public works crew coordinated to respond jointly, said Tyndall, who worked for years as a paramedic and firefighter. City workers met with the town’s Police Department and Worcester County officials to prepare for the storm, as forecasters were expecting heavy snowfall and reduced visibility.

Crews mobilized at 6 p.m. on Sunday. They plowed through the streets as snow picked up and were pulled back around 2 a.m. when visibility deteriorated. Crews were redeployed around 4:30 a.m., Tyndall said. One of their priorities is to open roads to health care facilities, including the only hospital in Worcester County, Tyndall said.

Tyndall hopped in the car with his wife and two kids in the morning to survey damage. Some areas, particularly around open farm fields, are impassable due to snow drifts. Decades-old magnolia trees, which are fixtures in the town, were completely torn to pieces, he said.

Tyndall, who turned 36 on Monday, said snow wasn’t the birthday present he was hoping for. It’s going to take time for the town to get back to normal, he said, though he can’t estimate how long.

Schenk could see a few plow trucks struggling through the snow from her apartment on the third floor. One got stuck, she said, and seemed to give up and drive away. Her son’s classes were canceled on Monday, and she is expecting virtual learning on Tuesday.

Her husband tried to go to work but ended up back at home. Route 50, the main throughway in the region, was impassable, he told her.