A major storm brought torrential rains and damaging winds to the northeastern US, killing five people.
In Hallowell, Maine, just south of the state capital of Augusta, the Kennebec River was over flood stage and still rising.
Utility companies worked to restore power to hundreds of thousands of customers following the powerful storm that brought windspeeds more than 60mph to some areas.
“It was pretty loud, the wind was pretty strong, branches are breaking, things are flapping outside,” said resident Drew Landry from Hallowell. “All the basements are pretty much flooded.”
Many communities saw well over 7.6cm (three inches) of rain during the storm. ON Tuesday Maine State Police were looking 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 of them by helicopter.
More than 13cm (five inches) of rain fell in parts of New Jersey and northeastern Pennsylvania, according to the National Weather Service. Wind gusts reached nearly 70mph along the southern New England shoreline.
Maine governor Janet Mills closed state offices on Tuesday to allow time for power restoration and clean-up efforts from the storm, which took down many trees and closed roads.
“We are expecting a multi-day recovery effort,” she said.
The Kennebec River at Augusta was expected to reach a crest of 25 feet (7.6 metres) by Thursday evening, the weather service said. Flood stage is 12 feet (3.6 metres).
Authorities in northwestern Connecticut said they responded to numerous accidents on Tuesday morning as roads drenched from Monday’s rain froze and created slippery conditions.
During the storm, an 89-year-old Massachusetts man was killed on 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, a driver was killed after the vehicle went around a barricade on a flooded road and was swept into the Catskill Creek, the Times Union reported. 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.
