PHOTO GALLERY: High Winds Tear Tarp From District Courthouse

It was the sound that got Fred Schneider’s attention as he walked the family dog at about 6 a.m. on Saturday morning near the new Rockville District Courthouse in Town Center.

“When I walked the dog around the block I could hear this thing tearing off the spikes they had in the stone wall," he said of the giant tarp that covered glass windows on the courthouse’s south side.

He took the dog home, grabbed his camera and returned to the courthouse just in time to see the tarp peeling back from the building's facade.

His photos show the blowing tarp, which tore from the bottom up and eventually blew on to the courthouse’s roof, leaving the windows exposed.

The after construction workers and passersby noticed that the sun’s reflection off the building’s glass facade was heating up the sidewalk and scorching bushes across Vinson Street at .

The phenomenon was 

"The Death Ray is back," Schneider reported on Saturday.

Shortly after the quick fix for the death ray went up in January, TBD.com reported that the tarp and its installation cost $30,000. 

"Thirty thousand dollars. Gone. Quite expensive for a two-week fix that white wash could have done," Schneider said on Saturday.

Schneider and his wife Sally live on South Washington Street about half a block from the courthouse, which is supposed to open April 1.

The Schneiders can see the courthouse from their front porch.

“You could hear [the tarp] flapping all night long ...," Fred Schneider said. "You knew it wasn’t going to last.”

The mesh tarp was a casualty of the high winds that wreaked havoc around Montgomery County on Friday night and Saturday.

Fire crews from across the region were battling the winds as they fought a on Saturday afternoon.

The National Weather Service issued a high wind warning early Saturday afternoon through 9 p.m. Northwest winds at 20 to 35 mph are possible with the strongest winds through 5 p.m. and gusts up to 60 mph possible.

Downed trees and branches, property damage and power outages are possible, the warning said.

Pepco’s outage mapshowed 812 of the utility’s 304, 759 Montgomery County customers experiencing outages at 4 p.m. on Saturday. None of those reported outages were in Rockville.

A red flag warning, signaling the potential for fires to spread, also is in effect through 9 p.m.

"A combination of strong winds, low relative humidity and warm temperatures will create explosive fire growth potential," the weather service's warning said.

This article has been updated.

Original post, 1:07 p.m.:

Rockville Patch reader Fred Schneider snapped photos Saturday morning as the tarp covering the windows at the new District Courthouse in Town Center tore off the building.

The tarp had been put in place in January after construction workers and passersby observed that the sun’s reflection off the building’s glass façade was creating a phenomenon dubbed the "death ray" that heated up the sidewalk and scorched bushes across the street at .