The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 10

MI Page 10a Wednesday, September 26, 2001 The Sun re If twWWiwJwwmwIWVMki miracle that more people weren 't killed or injured. Our goal is to return people to normal as quickly as possible. Gov.ParrisN.Glendening i u- ML 1 1 j- 'T'rW v' a' 1 i -4 i i i vrrr. 1 1 .1 4 '''l' -1 I 'j I I I J. I -Ct.

J' .1 1 I I i 1 a JV- -Vi'. i V-VV i 1 v. 1- i.e. 1 1 BTIk ftiwifrf -1 iMn I ininmiM AMY DAVIS SUN STAFF High School, social studies teacher Tony Ernst tries to salvage items in a classroom left exposed to the elements when the tornado tore off the roof. Six 7f is a Pitching in: At the annex of Laurel W1L1L Storm, from Page 1a Trade Center.

Because of what happened, there is a heightened anxiety, and nejRies are frayed, so it was especially, tense last night," said Amy Harbison, a university employee whose brother escaped from the 50thfioor of a World Trade Center tower. "But there's also a height-ened-'awareness of how devastat-ingthingscanbe." -A damage total was unavailable, yesterday, but the machinery of government assistance was lurching to life. Federal Emergency Management Agency inspectors are scheduled to tour damaged areas today. U.S. Rep.

Steny H. Hoyer, who represents much of the area, said FEMA was "stretched to the limit" after the terrorist at-tacltv but promised federal aid would be available if needed. nMajor roads in the storm's path, including portions of Route 1 and Route 193, remained closed late yesterday. The National Weather Service classified the College Park tornado as a "solid" F3 storm, with winds near 200 mph. The tornado was the most powerful to strike the state F4 storm ripped through Frostburgin June 1998.

Damage was unofficially estimated above $10 million, according to a weather service official. That would make this the costliest tornado in Maryland history. Yesterday's deaths were the first in Prince George's County since a 1926 tornado that killed 17 people the deadliest on record in Maryland. They were the first tornado deaths in the state since a 1984 fatality in Dorchester County. The tornado might have claimed Bowie's oldest volunteer firefighter.

Kreitzer died suddenly Monday about 11 p.m., after spending several hours assisting crews on the College Park campus. A colleague at the Bowie Volunteer 'Fire Department said Kreitz-er'Ercrew was relieved about 9 p.m. aiutfeturned to the Huntington fire station. Dan Clark, a fellow volunteer who knew Kreitzer for 47 said he spent a couple of honra talking and watching a foot-baUame and then drove home. About a block and a half away, Clark-, said, Kreitzer apparently lost control of his car and it went over the curb possiblyt jecause he had a heart attack.

r-f if v' Tr-nmiiui l' i i' '( IS' 3. 1 AfL 'r" jC' Km IK? II A ITn 1111 01 roniaQo worn 1 nrfp -M. Aw4 JERRY JACKSON SUN STAFF of the Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute looks into a damaged car amid 7 awaited students whose cars were parked in the 600-space lot behind Easton Hall, near where the Mar-latt sisters died. Most of the cars had at least one window smashed out; dozens were piled atop each other or crushed beneath trees. One by one, students were al lowed into the lot to determine the extent of damage to their Alexa Christiansen, a sophomore" from Reston, gasped when she i found her mother's Ford Escorts with four of its windows Her friend, Nicole Arbeiter, re minded her it could be worse.

"Hey, you still have a car," said Arbeiter, a sophomore from New York City. The greatest aftershock of the tornado aside from the fatalities, could be its effect on academics; students said. Classes were also canceled for an entire day two weeks ago, after the Sept. 11 ter-. rorist attacks.

Lauren Wilson had a term paper. due yesterday and a chemistry exam scheduled for yesterdays morning, both of which were a pushed back. "I couldn't do any of it. I was just 1 sitting in my friends' room and said, 'What do we do she said. "It's throwing off the work schedule." At Laurel High School not away from College Park, the school's roof was ripped from an wing containing six social studies, classrooms.

When the school reopens today, students will use other rooms, said Principal Mi- chaelMartlrano. "It's going to be devastating for them to see their school like this," he said. And in downtown Laurel, a few miles away, a Salvation Army canteen truck was dispatched from the Pentagon, where its crew had been assisting rescue workers. "I've been on duty for 32 said Robert A. Reed of Jonesboro, wearing his identification, from the Pentagon's recovery ef-' forts.

"You do what it takes to make it happen. You can catch up on your sleep later." Across the street from the can- -teen truck, Claire Sherwood, 26, was huddled with friends in matching maroon sweatshirts donated by volunteer workers. A UMCP arts student, she fled the campus and drove home after the storm hit, only to learn that the twister had also touched there. What should have been a ride to safety wound up being a tour of the tornado's damage. "It was scary," she said.

"I was freaking out." Sun staff writers Jonathan Briggs, Michael Dresser, Frank Roylance and Howard Libit con- tributed to this article. re- Clarence Kreitzer, 78, was a member of the Bowie Volunteer Fire Department since 1937. Known to his friends as "Cuz," Kreitzer joined the department in 1937, at age 16. "He was an institution," said Santa Bigony, a volunteer emergency medical technician. "He gave until he was unable to give." At College Park, the worst devastation was at the site formerly occupied by a trailer used by the Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute.

Chunks of the trailer were wrapped around trees like climbing vines. Computers, training handbooks, gas masks and other materials were strewn about. On campus, firefighters mimicked the rescuers at the World Trade Center In New York, and stuck a large flag near the work. A local restaurant, Lasick's, served workers free food. Inspections by structural engineers showed damage to some college buildings was not as severe as feared.

Nearby, a new $130 million performing arts center suffered little more than some shattered windows and will stillJiave an opening night gala Saturday. At the north end of the campus, where the storm touched down, students were patching blown-out car windows and marveling at how much has happened in less than a month since fall classes started. "I was talking to one of the freshmen and I said you'll never forget fall semester 2001," said Tanya Naguit, 18, a sophomore. At Easton Hall, a north campus dorm, freshman roommates Jerry Chao, 18, and Jeff Poe, 18, returned to their room about noon yesterday, 20 hours after being evacuated. They recalled watching the tornado from a sixth-floor hall as it bore down on their dorm, ripping Tossed and turned: An employee the remains of the institute's facility.

up trees, its funnel swirling with metallic debris. They soon fled to Easton's basement, while windows shattered and the howl of the wind became deafening. "It was the craziest thing I have ever seen," Poe said. Among the most affected campus buildings was its president's mansion. President CD.

"Dan" Mote Jr. is staying in a room at the University College, the system's continuing education branch, until the residence is cleared, university spokesman George Cathcart said. With classes canceled yesterday, students navigated a mazelike path back to their dorms, stunned at the violently changed landscape. Many roads remained blocked off by mounds of debris. The steeple of the nearby Pentecostal Holiness Church on University Boulevard was blown off, and a 5-foot hole was punched in the building.

Hundreds of tall, 100-year-old trees that had lined the campus drives and buffered dorms from Route 193 lay splintered on the ground, waiting for wood shippers. Students lamented the denuded JERRY JACKSON: SUN STAFF Waiting: UMCP sophomores Megan Forbes (right) and Anna Burrows look for Forbes' car in the parking lot behind Easton Hall. look of the campus. "It doesn't seem like Maryland anymore," said Dominic Foster, a freshman from Hershey, Pa. "One of my main reasons for choosing it was the campus.

Now, it's kind of shot." -An even greater surprise.