Residents of coastal communities in the northeastern United States battled floodwaters for a second day on Sunday as a powerful nor’easter battered the shoreline, knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes and disrupting activities from New Jersey to New England.
The storm triggered tidal surges across low-lying communities in New Jersey, while strong wind gusts toppled trees on New York’s Long Island, damaging homes and bringing down utility poles.
In Sea Bright, a coastal town in New Jersey, residents faced fresh flooding whenever high tide came in.
Caroline Virenius, whose garage was filled with about a foot of water, said the flooding had become a repeated ordeal.
“It’s not like a one-time occurrence,” Virenius said. “It’s getting wet again and again.”
The slow-moving storm had already claimed the life of a New York City Housing Authority worker on Saturday after a tree fell on the worker.
Forecasters said heavy rain, strong winds and dangerous surf could continue affecting areas stretching from the Mid-Atlantic to New England.
Some areas of New Jersey had received more than four inches of rain since Friday.
The combination of intense rainfall and rising ocean levels produced flooding that residents described as the most severe they had experienced in nearly a decade.
The National Weather Service said the storm was expected to weaken on Sunday night, although parts of New England and the Mid-Atlantic could still experience locally heavy rainfall.
Officials in New Jersey and New York, however, warned residents that another high tide expected late Monday could cause additional flooding.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said another part of the storm could bring further rainfall later in the day.
“There is another band of the storm, a weaker band, but still another band that could hit early this afternoon and later into the evening,” Blakeman said.
The nor’easter also disrupted flights and utility services in parts of the Northeast, while its impact brought back memories of Superstorm Sandy, which caused more than $60bn in damage across the eastern United States in 2012.
The current storm has not caused damage on the scale of Sandy, but weather experts said it could be the first of several nor’easters to affect the US East Coast this autumn amid an El Niño climate pattern that is influencing weather conditions.
