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Cars are submerged in flood water in Elmsford, New York, after a powerful storm on Monday.
CNN
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At least four people are dead as a powerful storm continues to lash the Northeast, knocking out power for nearly 650,000 homes and businesses from Connecticut to Maine and unleashing dangerous flooding that has engulfed cars, prompted water rescues and disrupted travel across the region.
The storm system has been carving a chaotic path up the East Coast, leaving a man in Pennsylvania and a woman in South Carolina – both in their 70s – dead after their vehicles were submerged in high water, local officials reported. Two other deaths were reported in Maine and Massachusetts.
The storm will continue walloping New England overnight after wreaking havoc across the Northeast Monday, unleashing 2-4 inches of rainfall across the region within the last 24 hours. The heavy rainfall triggered significant flooding that prompted rescues of drivers trapped on inundated roadways in New Jersey and Connecticut, and water rescues in New Hampshire and Maine.
High winds overnight may cause further air travel disruptions that were felt in major airports in New York, Boston and Washington, D.C. on Monday. More than 500 flights in the US were canceled and over 3,000 were delayed throughout the day, according to FlightAware.com.
Impacts of severe weather and flooding will linger over New England into Tuesday as river levels continue rising and snow is forecast over parts of the interior Northeast.
Temperatures are expected to plummet across the region Tuesday, where nearly 650,000 homes and businesses remain without power, according to poweroutage.us. The vast majority of outages are in Maine, where 424,000 are in the dark.
Fully restoring power to some Maine residents may take several days, warned Central Maine Power, a utility that serves more than 600,000 customers.
The conditions have prompted school closures or delays in several districts in Maine and New Hampshire.
Schools in Paterson, New Jersey, were also closed until further notice after the mayor declared an emergency Monday afternoon in anticipation of flooding from the rising Passaic River, saying he “expects the worst” of flooding to happen in the next 24 hours.
In nearby Little Falls, the mayor urged residents to evacuate before midnight Monday due to flooding of the river, which authorities previously warned could be “catastrophic.”
“Residents remain in their homes at their own peril,” Mayor James Belford Damiano said. “Flooding may cause dangers that may prohibit rescues as early as the overnight hours.”
Flood risk may be exacerbated in some New England states as heavy rain falls on top of an established snowpack. This may lead to rapid snowmelt and a sharp increase in flood threat.
The storm has been advancing up the East Coast and into the Northeast since the weekend, leaving at least four people dead from South Carolina to Maine.
In Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, a 72-year-old woman was found dead on Sunday after becoming trapped as her car was fully submerged in water, according to the Charleston’s Post and Courier newspaper. The area received more than 6 inches of rain that day.
Another person, a 73-year-old man, also died after his car became immersed in high water caused by heavy rainfall in Pennsylvania on Monday, according to coroner’s office in Lancaster County.
A 40-year-old man was killed in Windham, Maine, on Monday after a tree piece fell on him while he was on his roof trying to clear another part of the tree off his home, authorities said.
Also on Monday, strong winds and rain in Massachusetts caused a tree to collapse on a small travel trailer in Plymouth County, inflicting severe head trauma on the 89-year-old man inside, the local district attorney said. The man was rescued from the trailer but later died from his injuries.
