Basement

This is the 198th in a series of articles about the historical and architectural treasures of Washington County. Mills Road runs generally north/south between Burnside Bridge and Harpers Ferry roads, near land crossed during the Battle of Antietam. Well down the road, on the west, stands an elegant brick house opposite a weathered frame barn with brick granaries. Double chimneys rise from either gable wall of the house. A one-story, hip-roofed porch shelters the main entrance in the center of five bays.

Rockers from Basement say making good music is more than a hobby. "All of the money comes out of our own pockets so you have to be committed to it," said Conner Gilbert, guitarist and vocalist for the five-man band. "You don't want to put out an album with 10 of the worst songs you ever heard," he said. The band's first full-length album, "Next Year's Memory," released last spring, was a reflection of the best the band has to offer, said Billy Derrick, the group's other guitarist and vocalist.

martinsburg@herald-mail.com In the Inwood East Estates subdivision, where streets are named after Civil War generals, some residents have found themselves fighting their own battle. The enemy is water. After heavy rainfalls Saturday night, water poured into several basements in the subdivision, destroying toys, family photographs, furniture and appliances, residents said. One woman is dealing with the problem while her husband is stationed in Iraq, while another, a single mother of two, credits her friends with helping her pull through.

Basement door easement approved By JULIE E. GREENE julieg@herald-mail.com Sharpsburg Town Council members approved an easement Monday night permitting a resident to have a cellar entry using a public sidewalk. Town Council members voted 4-1 to grant the easement Fonda Ghiardi requested for her 201 W. Main St. home. Ghiardi wants to convert an adjacent log structure into a kitchen and said she needs an outdoor cellar entry to maintain access to a furnace and water heater in her cellar.

BLUE RIDGE SUMMIT, PA. - Wiring in a basement sparked a house fire Wednesday that left a family of four homeless, according to a fire official. A woman and several children fled the home and reported the fire using a neighbor's phone at 11:56 a.m., Blue Ridge Summit Fire Chief John Fleagle said. He said the house at 13451 Sunrise Drive, owned by Antietam Realty, was rented by Keith Ditzler and family. The split-foyer house was a "total loss," Fleagle said. Sgt. Vernon Ashway, a fire marshal with the Washington Township Police Department, was called to the scene to investigate the cause about two hours after the fire started.

shappell@herald-mail.com tarar@herald-mail.com TRI-STATE - Heavy rains that fell across the Tri-State area Monday closed some roads and flooded basements, especially in southern Washington County. A Porterstown Road resident said the flooding around her property south of Keedysville was the worst she'd seen in two decades. Emergency responders were inundated with calls from across the county Monday evening as a result of heavy rain in the area, said a Washington County 911 center dispatcher.

A single rubber ducky bobbed in a pool of rainwater behind Jim and Bonnie Kabler's Waynesboro, Pa., house Monday morning, hardly betraying the destruction below the ground. "Imagine opening your basement and seeing water two steps down," Jim Kabler said. "You could've knocked me down with a feather. " Heavy rains overnight Sunday coupled with a clogged drain at the intersection of South Potomac and Green streets had deluged the Kablers' basement at 416 S. Potomac St. with 6 feet of standing water.

waynesboro@herald-mail.com chambersburg@herald-mail.com QUINCY, Pa. - A Pennsylvania State Police fire marshal said Tuesday his investigation and that of the company that insured a brick home at 8010 Mentzer Gap Road concluded the Oct. 6 explosion that destroyed the home was caused by a build-up of methane gas in the basement, but the manner in which it occurred is unknown. "We can't pin that down," Trooper Jeffrey R. Sarver said of how the gas backed up into the basement.

KEEDYSVILLE -- An electrical fire early Thursday at a Keedysville home caused an estimated $10,000 in damage, the Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office said in a news release. The fire at 4217 Chestnut Grove Road started in basement dust collector and was ruled accidental, Deputy State Fire Marshal Ed Ernst said in the release. The fire was reported at 12:46 a.m. and took 10 minutes to control, Ernst said. Units from Potomac Valley, Sharpsburg, Boonsboro, Rohrersville, Fairplay, Special Operations, Jefferson County, W.Va.

julieg@herald-mail.com BOONSBORO - Terry Sholty was using the computer in his home south of Hagerstown on Sept. 17 when his wife, Susie, heard a warning on the news about a tornado coming toward Boonsboro. Being from Indiana, Sholty knew how bad tornadoes could be and his wife is "kind of an alarmist," he said, so the couple headed to the basement of their Bettys Avenue home. Boonsboro weather observer Barbara Snook also wanted to head to the basement when she and her husband, Carl, saw a funnel cloud drop from a big, dark cloud or wall cloud that day, Carl Snook said.

This is the 198th in a series of articles about the historical and architectural treasures of Washington County. Mills Road runs generally north/south between Burnside Bridge and Harpers Ferry roads, near land crossed during the Battle of Antietam. Well down the road, on the west, stands an elegant brick house opposite a weathered frame barn with brick granaries. Double chimneys rise from either gable wall of the house. A one-story, hip-roofed porch shelters the main entrance in the center of five bays.

Hagerstown Fire Marshal Doug DeHaven said he expected tenants of a downtown Hagerstown apartment building would be able to return to their homes Sunday after a report of smoke in the building's basement. Hagerstown firefighters responded to 25 1/2 W. Franklin St. at about 4:45 p.m. Sunday for the incident. No injuries were reported, officials said. DeHaven said the smoke came from a basement mechanical room that contained a furnace, but he did not know Sunday afternoon whether the smoke came from the furnace.

A 35-year-old man is accused of attacking a sleeping man early Monday after the victim's residence was broken into through a basement window, according to Berkeley County Magistrate Court records. Daniel Barry Shipley was arraigned Monday by Magistrate Sandra L. Miller on charges of burglary, battery, carrying a deadly weapon and obstructing an officer, according to court documents. Shipley had no fixed address, according to court documents. Martinsburg Police Department Patrol Officer E.C. Neely responded to a reported fight in progress in the 100 block of Gussie Avenue in Martinsburg at 2:12 a.m. and found that the victim's face was bloodied, according to court documents.

One person suffered smoke inhalation and four others were displaced when a fire started in the basement of a home early Thursday at 229 E. Franklin St. in Hagerstown, a city spokeswoman said. Hagerstown spokeswoman Erin Wolfe said the fire, which was reported around midnight, started in a breaker box. She said damage was limited to the basement, and firefighters cleared the scene by 1:30 a.m. The Red Cross was called to help the people who were displaced. Wolfe said one resident was transported by Community Rescue Service to Meritus Medical Center east of Hagerstown to be treated for smoke inhalation.

Candy stolen in burglary at Waynesboro newspaper office WAYNESBORO, Pa. - A dozen candy bars were all that was reported missing in a burglary at The Record Herald office on Sunday, according to the Waynesboro Police Department. A window of the building was smashed, as well as the front glass of a candy vending machine in the basement, police said. Other than the candy bars, nothing else was believed to have been taken, police said.

The Hagerstown Fire Department helped people at two homes next to the Washington County Hospital demolition site, where water has been leaking since Thursday into basements, Capt. Mark Cleck said Friday. Firefighters got a call for assistance at 3:54 p.m. Thursday from 23 S. Cannon Ave., Cleck said. Firefighters discovered the neighbors at 21 S. Cannon Ave. also had water leaking into their basement. It appears the water might be coming from water the demolition contractor has been spraying to keep down dust and particulates, per Maryland Department of the Environment regulations, said John Lestitian, Hagerstown's director of community and economic development.

Firefighters put out a house fire Sunday on Greenfield Avenue in Maugansville after greasy rags on a chair in the basement spontaneously combusted, Fire Lt. Travis Keefer said. No people were injured, but a dog died and the cat was missing, said Keefer, with Maugansville Goodwill Volunteer Fire Co. When the residents of 13822 Greenfield Ave., off Maugans Ave., came home Sunday afternoon, they saw smoke coming from the rancher into the carport, Keefer said. The state fire marshal’s office investigated and estimated the damage to be about $5,000, Keefer said.

Hospital officials have determined that an elderly man pulled from a fire Tuesday at his home north of Hagerstown died of smoke inhalation, the Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office said Thursday in a news release. Delbert G. Summerville, 88, 12809 The Terrace, died Wednesday afternoon at Meritus Medical Center, according to Deputy State Fire Marshal Ed Ernst. Longmeadow Volunteer Fire Co. Chief Jason Eckstine said at the scene of the fire that rescue personnel received a call at about 10:16 a.m. Tuesday that a man was trapped in the basement of a burning home in the 12800 block of The Terrace.

An 88-year-old man who was rescued Tuesday from a fire in a single-story home on The Terrace died Wednesday afternoon at Meritus Medical Center, according to Deputy State Fire Marshal Ed Ernst. Ernst said it is still unclear if Delbert G. Summerville died from injuries from the fire or from a medical condition. Ernst said Wednesday afternoon that he talked to officials at Meritus Medical Center and it was not known if an autopsy was going to be performed on Summerville to determine the cause of death.