Severe storm knocks power out for days in New England

HARTFORD, Conn.—A severe storm packing hurricane-force wind gusts and soaking rain swept through the Northeast early Monday, knocking out power for nearly 1.5 million homes and businesses and forcing hundreds of schools to close in New England.

Falling trees knocked down power lines and some utility companies warned customers that power could be out for days. Trees also fell onto homes and vehicles, but no serious injuries were reported.

New England got the brunt of the storm, which brought sustained winds of up to 50 mph in spots. A gust of 130 mph was reported at the Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire, while winds hit 82 mph in Mashpee on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

The storm left 450,000 New Hampshire electricity customers without power at its peak and produced wind gusts of 78 mph, emergency officials said.

In Warren, choppy waters swept away a one-story home. Video shows it sailing downstream and crashing into a bridge. The home then crumbles into the water.

Maine also was hit hard, with 492,000 homes and businesses losing electricity, surpassing the peak number from an infamous 1998 ice storm. The Portland International Jetport recorded a wind gust of 69 mph.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage issued a state of emergency proclamation, allowing drivers of electrical line repair vehicles to work more hours than federal law allows to speed up power restoration.

The storm began making its way up the East Coast on Sunday, the fifth anniversary of Superstorm Sandy. That 2012 storm devastated the nation’s most populous areas and was blamed for at least 182 deaths in the U.S. and the Caribbean. Electricity was slowly being restored. More than 1.2 million homes and businesses still were without power in the Northeast late Monday afternoon, according to a tally of outages from utility companies in more than a half-dozen states.