Powerful storm floods US Northeast, causes power outages

A powerful storm is pummelling the shoreline in the northeastern United States for a second day, causing another round of flooding in low-lying areas and knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes.

Tidal surges swamped low-lying neighbourhoods in New Jersey on Sunday, while wind gusts toppled trees on New York’s Long Island, damaging homes and bringing down utility poles.

In New York City, streets in the Howard Beach neighbourhood of Queens were inundated.

The slow-moving storm , which killed a New York City housing authority worker when a tree fell on Saturday, was expected to linger through Sunday, with heavy rain, strong winds and dangerous surf all the way to New England.

Extreme amounts of rain – more than 10cm (4 inches) since Friday in some spots in New Jersey – combined with a surging ocean led to flooding amounts not seen for close to a decade in places used to dealing with high water, residents said.

The storm, known as a nor’easter, triggered memories of Hurricane Sandy , which left behind more than $60bn in damage across the eastern US in 2012. While this storm’s impact has been nowhere near that, it could be the first of several along the East Coast this fall because of an El Nino climate pattern disrupting this year’s weather.

Images of waves crashing into sea walls and onto beaches raised concerns about coastal erosion.

More than 100,000 customers were without power across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic at times on Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us. The most widespread outages were in counties along the coast from New Jersey to Connecticut.

Numerous flights were cancelled or delayed up and down the coast. More than 250 flights had been cancelled at Boston Logan International airport by late Sunday morning as wind gusts reached 64km/hour (40 mph), according to the Massachusetts Port Authority.

The worst of the remaining rainfall was expected on Sunday from northern New Jersey into southern New England.

While the storm was gradually weakening, tidal flooding would stay through high-tide cycles Sunday night, said Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland.