Spike in Service Calls for Prince George's Through Weekend

More than 200 calls for service came into Prince George's Fire Department during the two-hours of Friday night's violent storm, according to department information.

As violent storms hit Maryland over the weekend leaving , service calls to Prince George’s County Fire and Emergency Services Department began to spike almost immediately.

According to Mark Brady, the fire department’s press information officer, the department received over 200 calls in just two hours on Friday night, between 10 p.m. when the storm hit and midnight when it was coming to a close.

“Most of the calls have been for fallen power wires and fires outside involving brush or trees, mostly caused when the power was re-energized,” Brady says. 

On Saturday, he says officers responded to 1,100 calls, which is more than three times the usually amount, and on Sunday, they responded to about 790 calls.

“The average number of calls on a normal day is about 365, so yesterday we saw more than double that,” Brady said.

Types of calls the department received over the weekend included automatic alarms that were activated when the power went out or was turned back on, heat-related injuries, automobile crashes, fallen trees, apartment fires and electrical wires coming down, according to Brady.