A powerful nor’easter has brought renewed flooding to low-lying parts of New Jersey and New York City while leaving tens of thousands of homes without power across the north-eastern United States.
Tidal surges inundated neighbourhoods in New Jersey on Sunday, while strong winds brought down trees and utility poles on Long Island, damaging homes. Streets in Howard Beach, Queens, were also flooded.
The slow-moving storm was expected to continue affecting the coast through Sunday, bringing heavy rain, powerful winds and dangerous surf as far north as New England.
Some parts of New Jersey had recorded more than 10cm (4in) of rain since Friday. The combination of intense rainfall and a surging ocean produced flooding levels that residents said had not been seen in some areas for almost a decade.
More than 100,000 customers across the north-east and mid-Atlantic were without electricity at points on Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us. The largest outages were reported in coastal counties stretching from New Jersey to Connecticut.
Flights were cancelled or delayed along the eastern seaboard. More than 250 cancellations had been recorded at Boston Logan International Airport by late Sunday morning, as wind gusts reached 64km/h (40mph), according to the Massachusetts Port Authority.
The storm has also raised concerns about coastal erosion, with waves seen crashing over sea walls and beaches.
Its arrival recalled Hurricane Sandy, which caused more than 60 billion US dollars (£44.5 billion) of damage across the eastern United States in 2012. The latest storm has caused considerably less damage, but it could be the first of several affecting the East Coast this autumn amid an El Niño weather pattern.
Although the nor’easter was gradually weakening, tidal flooding was expected to continue through high-tide cycles on Sunday night, said Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland.
The heaviest remaining rain was forecast from northern New Jersey into southern New England. The storm had already killed a New York City housing authority worker on Saturday after a falling tree struck them.
