A powerful nor'easter tore through the Northeast over the weekend, killing at least one person, cutting power to more than 100,000 customers and flooding coastal communities from the Jersey Shore to Cape Cod as the storm intensified faster than forecasters had expected.
A New York City Housing Authority employee was killed in Brooklyn on Saturday when a falling tree struck him, and four other people were hospitalized with minor injuries after a tree came down in the borough's Kelly Park, according to NBC News. Utility companies reported roughly 100,000 customers without power across New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine and Pennsylvania by Sunday morning, most of the outages caused by downed trees and limbs.
Surging tides and shuttered shorelines
Wind gusts reached nearly 60 mph along parts of the Connecticut and Long Island coastline and the New Jersey and Delaware shores, with forecasters warning of waves as high as 20 feet offshore. In Sea Bright, New Jersey, the mayor warned residents to brace for flooding as deep as six feet on some streets, comparing the surge to damage seen during Tropical Storm Irene, while New York Gov. Kathy Hochul urged people to stay away from the water altogether.
Anyone who goes in or near the water this weekend is literally gambling with their life.
Gov. Kathy Hochul
The storm forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights out of Boston Logan and the Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard airports, and disrupted a full slate of weekend events: an Ed Sheeran concert at Gillette Stadium was called off, and Major League Baseball moved a Red Sox-Cubs game to Tampa Bay. Coastal communities north of Atlantic City braced for the highest tides of the storm, with officials in several New Jersey towns, including Surf City, Edgewater and Beach Haven, reporting significant street flooding, according to CNN's coverage of the storm.
Emergency officials in North Carolina declared a state of emergency for the Outer Banks after floodwaters cut off access to Highway 12, and utility crews in the hardest-hit states said full power restoration could take into the middle of the week as thousands of downed limbs are cleared from roads and lines. Forecasters said the storm system was expected to pull away from the coast by Monday evening, with drier conditions returning by midweek even as cleanup continues.
