Too strong for umbrellas

A man fights a wind gust Friday in Boston as a storm system pounds the Atlantic Coast. The system’s hurricane-force winds and rain knocked out electrical service from North Carolina to Maine and was blamed for at least five deaths.

BOSTON — A nor’easter pounded the Atlantic Coast with hurricane-force winds and sideways rain and snow Friday, flooding streets, grounding flights, stopping trains and leaving 1.6 million customers without power from North Carolina to Maine.

At least five people were killed by falling trees or branches.

The storm submerged cars and toppled tractor-trailers, sent waves higher than a two-story house crashing into the Massachusetts coast, forced schools and businesses to close early and caused a rough ride for passengers aboard a flight that landed at Dulles Airport outside Washington.

“Pretty much everyone on the plane threw up,” a pilot wrote in a report to the National Weather Service.

The Eastern Seaboard was hammered by gusts exceeding 50 mph, with winds of 80 to 90 mph on Cape Cod. Ohio and upstate New York got a foot or more of snow.

The storm killed at least five people, including a 77-year-old woman struck by a branch outside her home near Baltimore. Fallen trees also killed a man and a 6-year-old boy in different parts of Virginia, an 11-yearold boy in New York state and a man in Newport, R.I.

Airlines canceled more than 2,800 flights, mostly in the Northeast. LaGuardia and Kennedy airports in New York City were nearly at a standstill.

The federal government closed all offices in the Washington area for the day.

AP/BILL SIKES