BOSTON — A powerful nor’easter swept across the Northeast again Sunday, flooding coastal communities and knocking out electricity for more than 130,000 homes and businesses. Forecasters cautioned that another cycle of high tides could bring additional flooding to already vulnerable shorelines.
The slow-moving storm was expected to persist through the day, bringing heavy rain, damaging winds and dangerous surf from New Jersey into New England. A New York City Housing Authority worker was killed Saturday when a tree fell.
On Sunday morning, the storm was positioned just south of Long Island and east of northern New Jersey. It was expected to circle the region for about another 24 hours, according to Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland.
The heaviest remaining rain was forecast from northern New Jersey across New York City and Long Island and into southern New England. Although the system was gradually losing strength, Oravec said tidal flooding would remain a threat during high tide Sunday morning and again Sunday evening.
“The most impactful parts of the storm are likely going to be the high winds and the tidal flooding,” Oravec said.
The nor’easter evoked memories of Superstorm Sandy, which caused more than $60 billion in damage across the eastern United States in 2012. This storm has been far less destructive, but an El Niño climate pattern disrupting weather conditions this year could contribute to several more East Coast storms this fall.
More than 130,000 customers across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic were without power Sunday morning, according to PowerOutage.us.
The largest concentrations of outages were reported along the New Jersey shore, on New York’s Long Island and in coastal Connecticut counties. Fallen trees across Long Island damaged houses and vehicles, blocked roads and brought down utility lines.
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The Federal Emergency Management Agency said response coordination centers in affected areas were operating at an “enhanced posture.” Teams also remained on standby in New England in case widespread power failures developed.
Flooding produced unusual scenes Saturday in New Jersey and New York, where some residents kayaked through submerged streets while others went to beaches to surf unusually large waves. In Sea Bright, New Jersey, emergency crews rescued a woman and her dog after floodwaters trapped their vehicle, ABC7 reported.
In Surf City, New Jersey, water poured into a marina despite workers’ efforts to move equipment to higher ground. Owner Kenny Formica said customers reported that boats and Jet Skis had disappeared or been blown off their lifts. In Norfolk, Virginia, floodwaters were deep enough for passing cars to send wakes through several streets.
The nor’easter also disrupted transportation across the region. Hundreds of flights were canceled at Boston Logan International Airport, while flooding severed highway access to North Carolina’s Hatteras Island. Visitors were stranded, and one couple had to find a new location for their wedding after most of their approximately 45 guests could not reach the island.
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AP journalist Julie Walker contributed from New York.
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