Storms turn Memorial Day weekend dangerous on East Coast

The missing person was identified as Eddison Hermond, 39, a member of the National Guard, Howard County police said.

Howard County Police Chief Gary Gardner said Hermond was in a restaurant on Main Street with friends when the water came surging through. A woman entered asking for help finding her missing cat. Hermond and his friends went to help, and that’s when, they said, he was pulled under and didn’t resurface, Gardner added.

Many residents of Ellicott City had just finished rebuilding from the major flooding of two years ago. Efforts were underway to install stream gauges that would help analyze water flow patterns around the river and warn residents of impending flooding, The Baltimore Sun reported last week.

The city also spent the past two years cleaning out debris from its channels and had planned to use previous money from FEMA to improve a culvert on the west side of downtown and to replace a runoff pipe. But construction wouldn’t have begun until 2019.

“You can’t get that much done in 22 months,” Kittleman said.

Residents acknowledged Sunday that Ellicott City’s flood-prone geography remains problematic. They’ve also suggested that new development above Main Street in the past two decades has worsened the runoff, which they see as contributing to more devastating flooding downtown.

“We’re down in the valley. When the downpours come like that, this is the bottom of the bowl,” resident Robert Simmons said.

Officials said Monday that they were focused on finding the missing person and helping downtown businesses and that there was time to address other concerns later.

Emergency personnel examine damage Sunday on Main Street in Ellicott City, Maryland.Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA

Much of the devastation from two years ago had already been repaired when Sunday’s storm struck, Kittleman said, and more than 90 percent of its businesses had reopened.

Resident Isabelle Levine worried that this storm might have delivered the final blow to the downtown district.

“If Old Ellicott City comes back after this, I will be amazed,” she said. “I would give up as a business owner.”