Northeastern US mops up ahead of holidays
PORTLAND, Maine — Just days before the Christmas holiday, people across the northeastern U.S. were mopping up Tuesday after a major storm dumped torrential rains and brought damaging winds from Pennsylvania to Maine, killing at least five people.
In Hallowell, Maine, just south of the state capital of Augusta, the Kennebec River was over flood stage and still rising.
Nathan Sennett, a cook at the Quarry Tap Room in town, was wading through hip-deep water to move furniture from a flooded patio and deal with a change in holiday-related business.
“We were supposed to have a couple of parties today and tomorrow, and just kind of sporadically throughout the weekend,” he said. “But obviously, we’ve had to cancel those.”
Utility crews worked to restore power to hundreds of thousands of customers after the powerful storm that brought wind speeds over 60 mph (96 kph) to some areas.
“It was pretty loud. The wind was pretty strong. Branches are breaking. Things are flapping outside,” said Drew Landry of Hallowell, who lost power and was looking at a street that was underwater Tuesday. “All the basements are pretty much flooded.”
Many communities got well over 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) of rain during the storm. Maine State Police were looking Tuesday for two people whose car was swept by floodwaters. Some towns in Vermont, which had suffered major flooding from a storm in July, were seeing more flood damage. Seventeen people were rescued from floodwaters in Conway, New Hampshire, four of them by helicopter.
More than 5 inches (13 centimeters) of rain fell in parts of New Jersey and northeastern Pennsylvania, and parts of several other states got more than 4 inches (10 centimeters), according to the National Weather Service. Wind gusts reached nearly 70 mph (113 kph) along the southern New England shoreline.
In New Jersey, a house surrounded by floodwaters caught fire Tuesday in Lincoln Park and was engulfed by flames. Firefighters were unable to get to it. Police said it was unoccupied.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills declared a civil state of emergency for most of the state because of the storm, which she said “left hundreds of thousands of people without power” and “caused significant flooding and infrastructure damage, including to the state’s federal-aid highways.”
Mills’ declaration positions the state to request federal disaster support in the weeks ahead. She declared the emergency for 14 of the state’s 16 counties and said she might add the other two.
In Portland, a 60-foot (18-meter) white pine tree came crashing down at the home of Ellen Briggs, who was not home at the time. Her neighbor, Nate Woodin, said he heard the collapse while wrapping Christmas gifts and it sounded like “a lightning crash.”
Pete Chagnon, 75, in Oxford, Maine, helped a couple of people remove a tree blocking a road, one of many that had fallen in his neighborhood.
“Since moving here (in 2015), I have seen some wicked storms, but yesterday took the cake,” said Chagnon, who lost power but had a generator.
Some rivers in the region crested. The Androscoggin River in Rumford, Maine, reached a maximum stage of 22 feet (6.7 meters) in a 24-hour period ending early Tuesday, the National Weather Service said. Flood stage is 15 feet (4.6 meters). The river was expected to fall below flood stage Tuesday afternoon.
The Kennebec River at Augusta was expected to reach a crest of 25 feet (7.6 meters) Thursday evening, the weather service said. Flood stage is 12 feet (3.6 meters).
Police in the town of Fairfield along the river issued a voluntary evacuation order for some areas. In the town of Mexico, along the Swift River, police searched for two people after their car failed to cross a bridge. Two others inside were rescued and treated for hypothermia.
Five months after flooding inundated Vermont’s capital, water entered the basements of some downtown Montpelier businesses as the city monitored the level of the Winooski River. Sandbags were back out on the streets, just in case they flooded.
“I just don’t want to go through what we went through again,” said Karen Williams, owner of Woodbury Mountain Toys, which flooded in July. She relocated across the street and reopened in October. “People are just opening up again.”
Williams’ new location is about a foot higher. This time, she just got a couple of inches of water in her basement, and a pump worked to get it out.
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott said that although waters were receding — and the damage was not as severe as the July storm — it was hard on residents still recovering from the earlier flooding. No deaths related to the storm were reported in Vermont.
“Seeing homes and businesses surrounded by water once again has been heartbreaking,” Scott told reporters Tuesday. “I can’t imagine the toll that has on anyone.”
Authorities in northwestern Connecticut said they responded to numerous accidents Tuesday morning as roads drenched from Monday’s rain froze and created slippery conditions.
Conditions were expected to remain calm the next few days.
During the storm, an 89-year-old Hingham, Massachusetts, man was killed Monday when high winds caused a tree to fall on a trailer, authorities said. In Windham, Maine, police said part of a tree fell and killed a man who was removing debris from his roof. Another man in Fairfield, Maine, died while trying to move a storm-downed tree with a tractor, news outlets reported, citing a news release from authorities.
In Catskill, New York, state troopers responded to a report Monday morning of an SUV submerged in water. An underwater recovery team discovered the body of the driver identified as Maryann Hyland, 76, from Leeds, New York, in the driver’s seat. Investigators said the SUV was pulled off the road and carried away by water.
A man was pronounced dead in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, after he was found in a submerged vehicle Monday.
On Sunday in South Carolina, one person died when their vehicle flooded on a road in a gated community in Mount Pleasant.