HAMPSTEAD, Md. — It took two firefighters and a dolley to move this concrete block, and the wind had no problem picking it up last night at the Hampstead Volunteer Fire Company carnival grounds.
"This tent was actually lifted in the air, over top of a pick-up truck, and landed on top of the pick-up truck. And this concrete block was actually hanging off the pick-up truck. It probably weights about 5,000 lbs."
Fire company president Jim Dwyer gave us a look at the aftermath.
"These poles are supposed to be straight - they are not. These were the ones that got lifted up and dropped on the person's truck. That gives you an idea the amount of wind that came through here and the forces that were involved."
"We always deal with summer storms, but never a storm of this magnitude," Dwyer said. "You know, it's August, we're in Maryland. Pop-up thunderstorms - they happen, but that's not a problem. Last night was an unusual circumstance."
Photos show what the area looked like immediately after the storm passed through -- tents stripped, an ATM knocked over, a carnival game flipped upside down. But there's more than just damaged items in these images - you can also see people.
Those people are volunteer firefighters -- Dwyer says his members showed up to start cleaning up right away, before he could even ask them to.
And the whole time - crews were getting sent out to respond to emergency call after call.
"They would clear one call and immediately go on another one," Dwyer recalled.
There was an urgency behind the desire to get the carnival back up and running. This is the company's biggest fundraiser of the year, and those dollars are especially important right now.
"The fire company has been in business for 123 years, and we recently made the decision to rebuild our fire station, so we have committed $8 million to the community," Dwyer said.
