Baltimore Gas and Electric could not say when repair crews would restore power to the 250,000 darkened homes and businesses that the utility serves in the Washington suburbs.
In Virginia, about 1.8 million utility customers were in the dark, Warner said, with about 80 percent of the state's largest city, Virginia Beach, without power. Many residents, including Mike Georgiou, were trying to put the best spin on things. His boardwalk restaurant, Fish Bones, had suffered no structural damage, he was grateful to report, but he had another consideration. "I have 20 cases of crab legs in there," he said. "I'm trying to find someone who has power, but they're not going to have room for my stuff."
Other problems were interrelated. The 1.2 million customers served by the Fairfax County Water Authority were told to boil their drinking water for one minute after power failures at all four of the agency's treatment plants left the water supply possibly contaminated. The problem also affected residents of Prince William and Loudoun counties who receive their water from Fairfax. They were being asked to conserve until the problem is fixed.
At noon yesterday, electricity was restored to one of the treatment plants, allowing residents to flush toilets and take showers, but the utility urged customers to continue boiling drinking water until quality tests can be completed early next week.
In Anne Arundel County, water supplies also were critically low in several communities on the Broadneck Peninsula after power was knocked out at a treatment plant. About 80,000 residents were affected.
Although Isabel may be best remembered as a public utility buster, it also proved to be a fatal storm. Nine people were reported killed in weather-related accidents, most from outside the Washington area. Many of the deaths resulted from crashes involving slick roads or downed trees.
A James Madison University student was killed early yesterday in Harrisonburg, Va., when the canoe he was riding in capsized, state emergency officials said. His body was found by search teams at daybreak.
The man, who was not identified yesterday, and two other JMU students, were trying to ride the canoe down a drainage ditch swollen from the hurricane about 2:30 a.m., said Frank Gilmore, a spokesman for the state's emergency operations center. Moments after they launched the canoe, it capsized.
Twenty people in the Washington area were treated for carbon monoxide poisoning in incidents involving emergency generators. In one Fairfax County incident, four children and four county police officers were treated after police responded to a call at an Annandale apartment and found a generator running inside. Two Howard County teenagers were hospitalized in another incident involving a generator inside a house.
President Bush signed a disaster declaration for Maryland yesterday afternoon, paving the way for federal aid. He had signed a similar declaration for Virginia on Thursday.
The storm had a scattershot quality, strongly damaging some areas, lightly skipping over others. District officials called the storm less powerful than expected, but surrounding communities may beg to differ. In Fairfax County, the "swift water team" set out in small boats to rescue almost 500 families in low-lying parts of the Belle View neighborhood.
At noon, many of those who had been evacuated returned to survey the damage, paddling toward their homes in canoes. Streets that were dry for a few blocks suddenly disappeared beneath murky water that rose waist high and swept into houses.
"This is not a good thing, obviously," said resident John Paton, who had watched the water in front of his house rise to knee level in 15 minutes at 2:45 a.m. "But at least we're alive and sitting out here talking about it."
Why Isabel did what it did -- inundating some areas, sparing others -- had much to do with its weakened nature as it reached the Washington area. After coming ashore about 1 p.m. near Drum Inlet on North Carolina's Outer Banks as a strong Category 2 storm, Isabel began to diminish, moving northwest through southeast Virginia, where it did some of its most extensive damage. By the time its outer edge was felt in the Washington area, it was a tropical storm with sporadic bands of rain and winds that reached more than 50 mph.
"Some of the bands had broken down, and it wasn't that well-organized anymore, so some areas were getting periods of rain as the bands passed through and other areas didn't get as much," said Jorge Aguirre, a meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center. "Southeast Virginia saw the worst of it, because the storm had more potential then. But then it began falling apart."
A total of 2.31 inches of rain fell at Reagan National Airport. The maximum wind speed there was 58 mph, said Neal DiPasquale of the National Weather Service.
At Waynesboro, in the Shenandoah Valley, 12 inches fell over 20 hours. The landscape was covered with small lakes that washed out farms, back yards, strip mall parking lots and country roads, shutting down much of the area.
Another factor to consider with Isabel, and a favorable one for the area, was that the storm accelerated as what remained of its eye passed through Virginia, about 65 miles west of Washington. "Our main concern was the potential for flooding," Aguirre said, "but it wasn't really an intense storm by the time it hit Washington. And the fact that it picked up speed helped the situation. The rainfall wasn't allowed to accumulate. Sometimes these storms become stationary and the flooding is tremendous."
Michael Sager, a meteorologist with Accu-Weather, agreed. "The storm started to unravel," he said, "and that's pretty much why things were so scattered."
By late afternoon, Isabel was but a fleeting low-pressure system in the Great Lakes area.
Officials fear it might be several tense days before the full extent of the flooding caused by Isabel is in evidence.
In Madison County, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, officials worried that runoff from the nearby hills could overwhelm bridges along the county's back roads. Weather Service meteorologists noted the "lag effect" of the swollen rivers, and officials feared that flooding could occur next week along the Potomac, Shenandoah and Rappahannock rivers.
Residents of the Southside city of Franklin, Va., were waiting to see what was in store for them in this go-round. Four years ago, Franklin suffered a devastating flood after Hurricane Floyd barreled through the area with torrential rains. The Blackwater River is expected to crest at 16 feet above normal next week, short of the 26 foot record set after Floyd. The difference may be in the rainfall: During Floyd, Franklin received 18 inches of rain; Isabel brought 10 inches.
In Western Maryland, state officials expected heavy flooding along the Potomac as well. In the District, Potomac levels reached 4.3 feet above flood stage -- possibly the highest storm surge since Hurricane Fran hit in 1996, the Weather Service said.
No matter its final strength, the storm managed to shut down the nation's capital and the surrounding area for two full days. Although schools and many businesses and agencies, including the federal government, were closed again yesterday, there were some signs that the region was beginning to return to normal.
Metro rail and bus service resumed in the morning, but commuter rail service on MARC and Virginia Railway Express remained suspended. Airports reopened, as did the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Maryland officials said they thought Thursday's closure marked the first time the bridge had been shut because of the weather in its 51-year history.
Metro escaped the storm with minor damage and little flooding. Crews had to clear fallen branches and trees from just one section of the railroad, between Congress Heights and Branch Avenue on the Green Line in Prince George's County.
The only significant issue Metro managers faced when they met at 7 a.m. to decide when to restart subway service was Fairfax County's lack of water. Running trains through an area without water poses a fire risk, but Metro officials ultimately decided to open the entire system at 8 a.m. Trains ran on a Saturday schedule because transit officials expected ridership to be light.
And it was. Fare gates recorded that 74,743 passengers had entered the Metro system by 3 p.m. yesterday, compared with 339,925 at that point the previous Friday.
Maryland emergency officials said all major roads and highways were open, but secondary roads were a problem, strewn with debris and often impassable. Virginia Department of Transportation officials put 225 crews to work removing trees and easing flooding, spokesman Ryan Hall said. Thirty roads in Fairfax County remained blocked by trees and water, while 26 Loudoun roads were impassable. Power outages also knocked out nearly 500 traffic lights in Northern Virginia.
Although there was plenty that needed to be done to repair the damages of Isabel, many people who weathered the storm said they felt that they had earned a little rest.
In Ocean City, several trees collapsed on houses and a couple of roofs blew off, but damages were assessed as relatively minor. A final city emergency services briefing was held yesterday morning, and the mood was nearly jubilant. After a weeklong, massive planning effort that involved twice-daily briefings and about 60 officials and hundreds of employees working long shifts, the worst they had prepared for never materialized.
"We're outta the woods here," Emergency Services Director Clay Stamp told the bleary-eyed but still adrenaline-fueled gathering. "We're gonna go home and go to sleep -- at least, I am."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34394-2003Sep19?language=printer
Photo: The encroaching waters of Annapolis harbor turn a downtown traffic circle into an urban island. Water was knee-deep in some shops. 
