More than 300,000 homes and businesses in Massachusetts were without power early Wednesday as a powerful nor’easter continued to batter the East Coast.
The storm has already caused flooding in New York and New Jersey, where emergency services have carried out dozens of rescues.
Its impacts are now being felt further north, where coastal areas of Massachusetts now bearing the brunt with reported wind gusts of up to 97 mph that have brought down trees and power lines.
Utilities firms National Grid and EverSource said more than 140,000 and 170,000 customers respectively were without power as of 5:20 ET.
Most of these, around 180,000, were in Barnstable and Plymouth counties, which cover Cape Cod and an area south of Boston.
All schools on the Cape have been closed, according to the Barnstable County Regional Emergency Planning Committee. And images and video posted on social media showed downed trees and other debris littering roads.
The Massachusetts Steamship Authority, which runs ferries from the mainland to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, said it was canceling all services until further notice. It warned people not to attempt to get to its terminals and to stay off the “extremely dangerous” roads.
The harbormaster in Plymouth said some boats had broken free from their moorings.
On Tuesday, New York City saw almost 4 inches of rain in lower Manhattan and and Brooklyn in 24 hours — which are amounts approaching the rainfall typically seen in a month.
The National Weather Service said the storm would push off the East Coast and its heavy rains would begin “tapering off” Wednesday.
But the Northeast won’t have much time to dry out, as there’s more rain in the forecast for the region on Friday.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
