EGG HARBOR CITY, N.J. — Last month, the U.S. Northeast was smothered by blizzards. Now, it’s waterlogged by torrential rains.
The region mopped up Sunday following a bout with high wind and heavy rains that uprooted trees, downed power lines and flooded some creeks and rivers. Six people died in storm-related accidents and hundreds of thousands were without electricity.
More than a half-million customers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut lost electricity at the peak of Saturday’s storm, which carried wind gusts of up to 70 mph. It came about two weeks after heavy snow and hurricane-force winds left more than a million customers in the Northeast in the dark.
“I spent most of the past few months clearing snow and ice out my driveway, sidewalks, front walks, and now we’re picking up all these branches,” Jack Alexander said as he and his family worked to clear debris from the front yard of their Egg Harbor City home. “It seems like we’ve had every type of weather event you could have this winter — I’m almost afraid to see what else can happen.”
Farther north in Jackson Township, drivers were negotiating stretches of flooded roadways and detours caused by fallen trees and accidents.
“Fortunately it’s a Sunday, so there’s not as much traffic to deal with” said Vanna Hayes, a 32-year-old New York City resident who was in the area to visit relatives. “We wanted to go to Atlantic City last night, but we put it off because it looked like a monsoon was happening down there.”
In Manhattan, Broadway’s sidewalks and trash cans were littered with hundreds of shattered umbrellas.
“Last night was wicked,” said Ron Recoskie, heading out for brunch and shopping on the Upper West Side. “I’ve never seen so many umbrellas on the street.”
At the storm’s peak, more than 265,000 customers in the New York City area and 235,000 customers in New Jersey were without power. The Philadelphia area reported 70,000 customers without electricity, while more than 80,000 customers in Connecticut sat in the dark.
PECO, an electric company serving the Philadelphia area, had assistance from crews from western Pennsylvania and Michigan, but some customers may have to wait until Monday for power to be restored, spokesman Fred Maher said.
Falling trees proved to be a deadly hazard.
A New Jersey woman was killed and three others were injured in Westport, Conn., after a tree fell on a car Saturday night during the storm, police said. Another woman died when a tree struck her as she was walking in Greenwich, Conn., they said.
Authorities in the suburb of Teaneck, N.J., said two neighbours were killed by a falling tree as they headed home from a prayer service at a synagogue. The men — 49-year-old Ovadia Mussaffi, president of the Sephardic Congregation of Teaneck, and 54-year-old Lawrence Krause — were struck by a large oak tree around 7 p.m., Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said Sunday.
In Hartsdale, N.Y., another suburb, a man was killed when a large tree crushed the roof of his car and entangled it in live wires. Brendan McGrath, 58, of Auburn, N.Y., was found dead in his 2009 Hyundai sedan. His wife, Mary, also 58, escaped from the passenger side.
In Rhode Island, an off-duty state trooper died in a crash early Sunday after his car hydroplaned in a large patch of standing water left from the weekend’s storms, state police said. James Dougherty Jr., a 41-year-old detective sergeant, was killed in West Greenwich.
In Uniondale, N.Y., the aging Nassau Coliseum lost three pieces of its aluminum facade about 90 minutes before the start of the New Jersey Devils and New York Islanders National Hockey League game.