HoCo Power Outages Linger, Snowball Stand Steps Up — 2026-07-07

Today's forecast: patchy fog then scattered showers and thunderstorms, high near 84 degrees.

Good morning. Tuesday, July 7. Power outages from the holiday-weekend storms are still lingering across Howard County — and a local snowball stand has become the relief story. BGE says full restoration may not come until Wednesday evening. The Board of Education approved changes to next year's HCPSS calendar. And Calvin Ball announced a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar grant to launch a Financial Empowerment Center. This is your morning brief for Howard County.

Power outages from the Fourth of July weekend storms are still lingering across Howard County. Saturday's severe thunderstorms knocked out power to more than eighty thousand customers in central Maryland, and BGE says full restoration isn't expected until Wednesday evening. WTOP reports a Howard County snowball stand has become a bright spot — offering cold relief to neighbors riding out the outage. If your block is still dark, report it to BGE and check on neighbors without air conditioning, especially older residents.

The Board of Education approved several adjustments to the 2026-2027 HCPSS school year calendar on June 25. The updated dates are posted on the HCPSS news site — worth a look before you lock in family plans for the school year. Details at news.hcpss.org.

Columbia Association is running free FIFA World Cup 26 watch parties on the big screen at the CA Lakefront Stage in Downtown Columbia. The series started with two games in June, and CA says more are planned as the tournament continues. Check columbiaassociation.org for the next scheduled broadcast.

A New York-style Italian restaurant is opening next month in Ellicott City, the Baltimore Sun reports. Name, location, and menu details are in the Sun's write-up. Another addition to the county's Italian lineup.

Manor Hill Brewing runs its Pizza Trolley this Friday — the repurposed trolley from Old Ellicott City serving Neapolitan-style pizzas from a custom brick oven. Traditional cheese and pepperoni, plus creative specials. Details at manorhillbrewing.com.

Baltimore Fishbowl's Daily Dispatch quiz features Howard County's unusual vending machines — the county's new free, twenty-four-seven overdose-prevention machines making regional trivia. When your public-health rollout becomes a quiz question, word is getting around.

Today at the library. Drop-in hours with a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist from the Howard County Health Department at the Central Branch, ten to four. Little Learners Summer of STEAM at Elkridge at ten thirty. All Together Now at East Columbia at ten thirty. And two Play Partners sessions for infants at Savage — nine thirty and ten thirty.

Also today. County Executive Calvin Ball announced a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar grant to launch a Financial Empowerment Center — free financial counseling infrastructure for county residents; details in the July 2 release at howardcountymd.gov. WBAL's forecast desk says below-average temperatures continue this week as the active weather pattern holds — cloudy and cooler with afternoon storm chances. A site has been selected for Howard County's fourteenth high school — the next milestone in the Elkridge school project. Construction on Ellicott City's flood mitigation tunnel begins this summer, and the tunnel's boring machine is nearly ready for use — timely news after another stormy weekend. County leaders marked progress on the broader Ellicott City flood mitigation work this spring. Calvin Ball's age-friendly legislation expands the Senior Tax Credit and extends the Aging in Place tax credit — worth a look for older homeowners. The Baltimore Banner's Howard County Council District 1 and District 3 race pages remain online for anyone catching up on the primary results ahead of November.

Storm chances run through tonight — sixty percent this evening, low around 68. WBAL says the cooler, unsettled pattern continues midweek with below-average temperatures. If BGE crews are working your street, give them room; full restoration is targeted for Wednesday evening.

Here's what I'm watching. Eighty thousand customers lost power Saturday, and some are still waiting on a Wednesday-evening restoration — that's a five-day outage in July. The snowball stand stepping up is the kind of small local response that makes an outage bearable, but the pattern is the story: three straight stormy weekends, a flash flood watch last Monday, and the Ellicott City flood tunnel breaking ground this summer. The infrastructure and the weather are racing each other. Check on your neighbors without power. Back tomorrow.

That's today's brief. Full edition at hocobrief.com — newsletter, archive, send tips. I'm at the desk. See you tomorrow morning.