After outages, fires and damaged appliances, Parkville neighbors want answers

Beth Schmidt was home with her two high school-age kids on a muggy evening last month when the lights cycled on and off several times around 7:30 p.m.

Eventually, the lights stayed off.

“We heard pops. It was a lot. I was like, ‘Oh, we’re going to be out of power for days,’” said Schmidt, 46. “Then someone knocked on my door and said, ‘Your backyard’s on fire.’”

She was not alone. Several residents in Parkville’s Cromwood Coventry neighborhood reported hearing popping noises and explosions on the night of Sept. 3. People on a walk in the wooded neighborhood just north of the Baltimore Beltway reported power lines vibrating and swaying.

It was the third time in almost two years that the same corner of Schmidt’s yard, with her rabbit shed and peach tree, had caught on fire after incidents she said involved a downed or arcing power line. BGE said it was still investigating the fire and whether it was connected to electrical equipment that had been damaged during the storm.

Schmidt said the line also ignited bushes in her neighbor Jeff Karowich’s yard. On the other side of Cromwell Ridge Road, Eric Wicklein, owner of Wicklein’s Native Plants, said he found the controller boxes for his nursery’s water pumps fried. Then, during an emergency community meeting on Sept. 22, more than 30 residents listed issues they believe may be connected to the Sept. 3 power surge. Damage recorded by neighbors included blown light bulbs, fried surge protectors, tripped breakers, and damaged appliances and HVAC systems.

Residents said multi-hour outages after major storms are not unusual. But last month’s incident, along with three house fires that occurred on Haverhill Road after a Feb. 16, 2025, outage, prompted residents to worry that the incidents could be related to broader electrical problems.

Nick Alexopulos, a BGE spokesperson, said the Sept. 3 outage was “caused by a fault on an overhead line,” but the cause of the fault was still under investigation.

“Storms were impacting our service area over several days, but we cannot definitively say the fault was caused by storm conditions,” he said in an emailed statement.

A power surge is a brief increase in electrical voltage that can damage appliances and electronics. Causes include lightning, damaged equipment, wiring problems, or issues inside a customer’s home, said Mumtaz Hussain Soomro, an engineering professor at the Community College of Baltimore County.

“Think of electricity like water flowing through our pipes,” Soomro said. If water flows steadily and someone suddenly opens or closes a large valve elsewhere in the system, there could be a sudden change in water pressure.

“Electrical systems can experience similar disturbances when large loads are connected or disconnected,” he said, noting that this can happen when power is restored following an outage.

Utility companies recommend unplugging appliances and sensitive equipment during an outage to avoid overloading circuits when the power returns.

Parkville residents contacted BGE after both outages, prompting engineering reviews, field inspections, voltage monitoring and reliability assessments, the utility said.

“BGE has thoroughly investigated customer concerns in the Haverhill/Cromwood Coventry area, including extensive engineering reviews, field inspections, voltage monitoring, vegetation assessments, and reliability evaluations,” Alexopulos said. “Engineers did not identify evidence of sustained abnormal voltage conditions on the electric distribution system, and they found no evidence of neighborhood-wide overvoltage conditions.”

‘Kind of weird around here’

Haverhill Road sits at the neighborhood’s edge, surrounded by tall trees and Cromwell Valley Park. Power lines run through people’s backyards.

On the night of Feb. 16, 2025, the power went out around dinnertime after strong winds. When it came back on, the lights flickered and flared, said Kelly Price, 66, and Jen Smith, 62, who live on Haverhill Road.

Price said she measured about 153 volts in one of their outlets with a voltmeter. The standard residential voltage is 120 volts. Smith said she recorded similarly high readings and called BGE, which dispatched an emergency crew.

“You could tell something was not right. The power would go out, and it would come back on, and everything would get really bright, and [power strips] would pop,” Smith said. Her husband turned off the breaker before going to bed.

The next thing Smith and Price knew, the Baltimore County Fire Department was on their street. One neighbor’s breaker box had exploded, Price said. Another neighbor woke in the middle of the night to find his attic smoking and a bathroom vent fan on fire.

Firefighters removed the charred vent fan and opened the ceiling to find “charred joists and smoldering insulation,” according to the Fire Department’s report.

The third neighbor’s backup generator caught fire in the morning and burned part of the house, Price said.

Those neighbors declined to speak to The Banner.

People in the neighborhood suspected the three incidents were linked to electrical issues after the outage, but the Fire Department has not concluded that a power surge caused the February 2025 fires.

“It hasn’t been concerning until the last couple of years,” Smith said. “But it seems like now we’re getting surges and brownouts, and it’s something new. It’s causing scary stuff to happen.”

Sarah Ford, another neighbor, said she has noticed frequent power dips over the past two years, often triggering backup battery alarms throughout her home.

In the months after the fires, BGE reviewed voltage monitoring data, conducted field inspections and tested for loose conductors, Alexopulos said. In March 2025, the utility installed a TripSaver device designed to reduce sustained outages. Contractors regularly come through the neighborhood to trim branches around lines.

What now?

Electric infrastructure ages as it’s used, Alexopulos said. BGE continues to do maintenance and proactive work to head off anything that might break just from wear and tear over time, he added.

“But again, you can’t catch all of those things in advance,” he said.

Schmidt estimated damage to her shed and peach tree at about $2,000, but said BGE denied her claim on Oct. 1 because of a storm declaration.

The storm “set off a series of events that caused damage to the overhead electric equipment in your area that resulted in damage to your property,” the letter said. “BGE could find no negligence in this matter and therefore is not liable for the damage.”

Jake Ouslander, deputy people’s counsel with Maryland’s Public Service Commission, which is the state’s utility watchdog, said that utilities are not required to reimburse people for damage caused by outages or surges following storms.

“These systems are big, and they’re complicated, and there are things that could happen that might not be due to the utility’s negligence,” he added. “Having said that, they also do have a lot of control over these things and probably could take steps to minimize it or prevent it from occurring in the first place.”

Schmidt said she remains worried. “The first one or two [backyard fires], I was just kind of willing to forgive, but by the third time in the same place, and then knowing that these same surges have caused so much damage to all of our neighbors’ houses?” she said. “It makes you want to move.”