Residents were rescued as communities that flooded this summer were inundated again, and power companies warned that outages could last for days.
Rescuers pulled dozens of residents from flooded homes and cars across New England after a powerful coastal storm that left hundreds of thousands of people without power on Tuesday.
More than three inches of rain fell on some parts of the region, combining with snowmelt to send rivers and streams over their banks. Officials in Vermont, still reeling from catastrophic floods this summer, said the damage appeared to be less severe than the state experienced in July, but could be more widespread.
“Seeing homes and businesses surrounded by water once again has been heartbreaking,” Gov. Phil Scott said at a news conference on Tuesday afternoon, noting that some of the communities that flooded this summer had been inundated again. “I can’t imagine the toll that has on anyone,” he added.
Rushing floodwaters in parts of New Hampshire and Maine also led to evacuations and water rescues, officials said, including some by helicopter. Flooded rivers across the region had mostly crested and were receding by Tuesday afternoon.
The deluge resulted from a storm that swept up the East Coast on Sunday and Monday, flooding streets, snarling transit and closing schools from South Carolina to northern Maine before sweeping into eastern Canada.
Heavy winds caused trees to topple onto homes and power lines, killing at least one person in Massachusetts and two in Maine, according to the authorities and local news reports. Three people died in flooded vehicles in New York, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.
Share of customers without power
Nearly 500,000 customers across New England remained without power by midafternoon Tuesday, mainly in Maine and Massachusetts, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks the utility industry. Officials warned that restoration could take several days in some communities.
National Grid, a power provider in Massachusetts, said on social media that about 2,000 of its workers were clearing trees and repairing electrical infrastructure. Central Maine Power said on Facebook that it expected a multiday effort to restore power.
The storm also caused damage in Canada, where nearly 115,000 homes in four provinces were without power by midafternoon Tuesday.
The heavy rain and flooding could be a preview of more to come. Government forecasters expect more precipitation than usual for the eastern United States from December through February, with warmer temperatures meaning that more of it will fall as rain than snow. Rising global temperatures from climate change are resulting in more short, intense storms, which can increase flooding.
In Vermont, Governor Scott said that the latest flooding was a reminder that the state needed to adapt to the changing conditions. “We simply cannot rebuild the same way in the exact same places,” he said.
A dozen people across Vermont had to be rescued from the rising waters, Jennifer Morrison, the state’s public safety commissioner, said at a news conference with the governor, including three from a home in Jamaica and nine from vehicles swept away by flooding.
No deaths were reported, she said, but she warned that “some rivers are still at flood stage, and most have extremely strong currents.”
Dozens of schools across northern New England were closed on Tuesday, as were several ski resorts. In Barre, Vt., aid workers set up an emergency shelter for people displaced by the flooding. It was in the same building that sheltered evacuees in the summer.
Reporting was contributed by Maia Coleman, Delger Erdenesanaa, Judson Jones and Jenna Russell.
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