By Tara Fischer

Staff Writer

(Feb. 26, 2026) This week’s heavy winter storm left some Town of Berlin residents without power for upwards of 18 hours, electric officials said.

When snow began to fall and the wind picked up Sunday night, Berlin residents found themselves without electricity until well into the afternoon the next day.

Tim Lawrence, the Town of Berlin’s electric utility director, said that “things started to deteriorate around 8 p.m.” Sunday, when the heavy snow started to blow in, and the department initially received power outage calls.

The issue stemmed from Delmarva Power’s transmission line. Lawrence said the line comes from a substation at Old Ocean City Boulevard and Route 5o and is owned by the power company. That line feeds into the Town of Berlin, and around 8 p.m. on Sunday, it started to trip on and off.

Around 9:30 p.m., the line went down completely, taking with it the Town of Berlin’s entire electric system.

That transmission line was down until about 9:30 a.m. on Monday. Berlin staff then had to bring town facilities and residences back online slowly, working in segments.

“That’s a very slow process because you can only do a certain amount at a time,” Lawrence said. “Then you have to let it die back down, and basically when people’s heat levels out and everything, then you can add a little bit more to it.”

The first portion of town to have its power restored was the Atlantic General Hospital area. That circuit feeds down Route 113 north, then travels east down to Old Ocean City Blvd. Then, the town’s electric team concentrated on the downtown area, Franklin Avenue, and Branch Street. The next circuit to see electricity included the wastewater plant and the Berlin Police Department. Finally, power in the Buckingham Lane area was restored.

Lawrence said that by 3 p.m. Monday, about 98% of Berlin once again had electricity.

“When you have a power outage, it affects areas like hospitals, medical spaces, that type of thing,” the utility director said. “We try to get that up first because if there are accidents, they can treat people … then you start concentrating on the residents. It’s kind of hard to pick and choose what areas you bring up first. When we look at it, we look at medical services, police departments, and fire departments.

“Those are the main ones we try to bring up first. Because fire has to respond to calls and that type of thing, and police are doing emergency services.”

After about 3 p.m., Lawrence said crews had to go to “at least” 25 individual locations to handle the last bit of power outages. He said that his team received calls from the police department about issues such as downed service wires at some homes.

“You have to go to each location, figure out what’s wrong, repair it, and get their power restored,” Lawrence said. “We had several fuse cutouts that were blown or melted because of overload. So, we dealt with that. We had four or five transformers that failed, and we had to replace them throughout the night.”

He added that his team worked about 28 hours total, beginning 6 p.m. Sunday when utility employees came in for their shift to begin snow plowing, and finishing up the crisis response at 10 p.m. Monday.

The Maryland National Guard also came into Berlin on Monday to aid the effort.

According to Lawrence, there were certain spots the electric team had to service where their trucks couldn’t reach. He said that the National Guard helped staff unload large, heavy mats so the utility vehicles could be backed in without sinking into any mud.

Lawrence said that in the 16 years he has been with the Town of Berlin, this week’s power outage was the longest yet. He noted that the entire town was down for at least 14 hours. Previously, five and a half hours was the longest period residents were without electricity in recent history.

Berlin Mayor Zack Tyndall took to Facebook Tuesday morning to thank the town’s departments for their help with the blizzard aftermath.

“I have always been proud of our teams at the Town of Berlin, but these last 36 hours have been a true testament to the hard work and dedication of our town employees,” he wrote. “Many showed up at 6 p.m. on Sunday and worked through the day [Monday] to help clear the roads and restore power. They worked through freezing temperatures, strong winds, and historic snowfall. Thank you, Town of Berlin Public Works, Electric, Water Resources, Police, and Berlin Fire Company for everything you have done and continue to do for our community.”