A lightning strike on August 1 knocked out the only elevator serving a four-story building at The Gatherings at Forest Glen, a 55-and-older community in Odenton, Maryland, and nine days later, residents are still stranded. Fourth-floor resident Mattie Procaccini, who is recovering from a broken leg and gets around with a walker or cane, says she cannot negotiate the 76 steps down to the ground floor, leaving her essentially trapped in her own home.
Procaccini told CBS News Baltimore that she went six of the past nine days without air conditioning, has a doctor's appointment she needs to get to, and needs medicine that's become harder to access while she's stuck upstairs. She described the situation among residents as a point of despair, according to the station's report. Fellow fourth-floor resident Carol Kenney is in the same bind — like Procaccini, she has difficulty using the stairs, and the broken elevator has left her essentially unable to leave the building too.
Neighbors Filling In Where Management Hasn't
With no working elevator and, per the same account, little to no help from building management, residents say they've been leaning on each other to get by. Neighbors have been relied upon for food and refrigeration, while Procaccini and others on her floor say they've had to depend on family members to bring supplies up the stairs. The building also lacked power for several days during the outage, compounding the strain on residents already running out of food.
Building management told residents in an email obtained by the station that it was waiting on a delivery date for the elevator repair part — but has not offered a timeline beyond that. The station said it reached out to the management company for an update and was still awaiting a response as of publication. Properties within The Gatherings at Forest Glen are managed by firms including Piney Orchard Community Association-affiliated management such as Residential Realty Group, Inc. and Property Management People, Inc., though it is not clear from available information which firm handles this specific building.
What the Law Says About Elevator Repairs
Maryland's elevator rules add real friction to how fast a fix like this can happen. Under the state's Elevator Safety Law, elevators must be registered annually with the Maryland Department of Labor and carry a valid inspection certificate. Repairs, maintenance, and replacement work must be performed exclusively by mechanics and contractors licensed through the state's Elevator Safety Review Board, according to state code compiled by FindLaw — meaning a building handyman legally cannot step in to make the fix, no matter how urgent the need.
Separately, the federal Fair Housing Act requires multi-family buildings with four or more units built after March 13, 1991 that include elevators to maintain accessible routes to every dwelling unit, an obligation that falls on housing providers to promptly repair elevator systems, per guidance published by Housing4Hoosiers. The Gatherings' four-story garden-style buildings, built starting in 2008 by Beazer Homes, were designed with a single elevator per building stack, meaning any outage this long cuts off every upper-floor resident who can't use stairs, according to a Redfin listing describing the property's layout.
Severe Storms Behind the Outage
The outage traces back to severe thunderstorms that rolled through central Maryland and Anne Arundel County in early August, bringing cloud-to-ground lightning, wind gusts up to 60 mph, and widespread power disruptions, according to alerts tracked by Capital Weather. Nationally, elevators in multi-family residential buildings average two to four unplanned outages a year, per data cited by Hoozzee — but nine days without service, in a building full of seniors who can't use stairs, is an extreme case.
County Help Is Available, But Unclear If It's Been Used
Anne Arundel County does offer resources for residents in exactly this bind. The county's Department of Aging and Disabilities runs an Information and Assistance hotline at 410-222-4257, alongside Senior Care and Mobile Integrated Community Health programs meant to help older or disabled residents facing medical or daily-living emergencies, according to Anne Arundel County government. The county also runs Paratransit Transportation and an Easy Travel Access taxi voucher program for seniors and people with disabilities who need help getting around.
The county's Adult Evaluation and Review Services program can send registered nurses and social workers to conduct health assessments for chronically ill or disabled adults, a resource aimed at ensuring safe community living, according to the Anne Arundel County Mental Health Agency. It remains unclear whether property management at The Gatherings requested any emergency intervention from county agencies, or what timeline the elevator contractor has actually given for the repair part. Until that part arrives, residents like Procaccini and Kenney remain confined to their fourth-floor units, waiting.
