Since the worst of the storm will hit in about 5 hours, I want to be ready  (I have 2 cats, carriers for both)

According to the shelter list here, UMBC, closest shelter to me, is pet-friendly - http://catonsville.patch.com/articles/state-posts-shelter-list

http://www.baltimorecountymd.gov/Alert/alert.html --  they say that UMBC's RAC will NOT take pets.

Will you at least take pets if they belong to employees who are moderately discreet about it? 

Edited to clarify -- we mostly would ONLY need the shelter if a particular tree falls --- it would go KABOOM on our house.  Otherwise I'm good if we lose power or whatnot. 

But I like to monitor the power-outages, so here's my favorite 2 links, to amuse those of you who took a look at this.  http://www.bge.com/customerservice/stormsoutages/currentoutages/pages/default.aspx
http://mema.maryland.gov/current/Pages/PowerOutages.aspx