A powerful nor'easter continued to batter the Northeast on Sunday, flooding coastal communities and leaving tens of thousands without power as forecasters warned that another round of high tides could inundate vulnerable shorelines. The slow-moving storm, which killed a New York City housing authority worker on Saturday when a tree fell, was expected to linger through Sunday with heavy rain, strong winds, and dangerous surf from New Jersey to New England.
The storm remained just south of Long Island and east of northern New Jersey on Sunday morning and was expected to loop around the area for roughly another 24 hours, said Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service. The worst of the remaining rainfall was expected Sunday from northern New Jersey through New York City and Long Island into southern New England. Oravec stated that the storm was gradually weakening but the threat of tidal flooding would linger through high-tide cycles Sunday morning and again in the evening.
"The most impactful parts of the storm are likely going to be the high winds and the tidal flooding," Oravec said.
More than 100,000 customers were without power across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic Sunday morning, according to PowerOutage.us. This included more than 40,000 in New York, 31,000 in Connecticut, 21,000 in New Jersey, and 11,000 in Massachusetts.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency reported that response coordination centers in impacted regions were operating at an "enhanced posture," and teams were on standby in New England in case of widespread outages.
In New Jersey and New York on Saturday, some residents kayaked down flooded streets, while others headed to beaches to surf the unusually high waves. Emergency crews in Sea Bright, New Jersey, rescued a woman and her dog after their vehicle became trapped in floodwaters. In Surf City, New Jersey, water rose inside a marina where workers had moved equipment to higher ground. Owner Kenny Formica reported that customers had boats and Jet Skis missing or blown from their lifts.
In Norfolk, Virginia, floodwaters caused passing cars to create wakes through some streets. The storm also disrupted travel throughout the region, with hundreds of flights canceled at Boston Logan International Airport. Flooding cut off highway access to North Carolina’s Hatteras Island, stranding visitors and forcing one couple to relocate their wedding after most of their guests could not reach the island.
