A powerful nor'easter brought flooding, widespread power outages and major travel disruptions across the Eastern Seaboard on Saturday as heavy rain and strong winds battered coastal communities. Millions of residents across the region remain under coastal flood warnings, with forecasters warning that additional rain, high tides and damaging winds could continue into Monday. The storm has forced evacuations, submerged roads and knocked out electricity to tens of thousands of people.
Forecasters say the slow-moving system is expected to linger near the New Jersey coast before gradually moving northeast, prolonging the threat of flooding, erosion and travel delays. The National Weather Service (NWS) explains that a nor'easter is a storm along the East Coast of North America where winds over coastal regions usually come from the northeast. These storms can form at any time of year but are most common and powerful between September and April.
Such systems “nearly always” bring heavy rain or snow, as well as gale-force winds, rough seas and occasional coastal flooding, according to the agency. The last notable nor’easter to hit the East Coast was this past February, when a storm brought record-breaking snowfall to the Northeast, including as much as nearly 38 inches in Rhode Island. The most immediate concern Saturday was coastal flooding driven by intense onshore winds and unusually high tides.
Water inundated roads along the Jersey Shore and flowed into vulnerable waterfront communities around New York City, trapping vehicles and flooding neighborhoods just a few feet above sea level. In Edgewater, New Jersey, emergency crews evacuated residents from a waterside hotel after floodwaters from the Hudson River entered the building, The New York Times reported. Crews removed roughly 20 people as they continued rescue operations throughout the morning, per the newspaper.
Officials also reported flooded streets in Point Pleasant, Belmar and other Jersey Shore communities. Flooding also spread into parts of Queens, New York. In Hamilton Beach, a low-lying neighborhood near John F.
Kennedy International Airport, water pushed into residential streets and left some areas under several feet of water during high tide. Emergency managers warned that additional flooding was possible as subsequent high-tide cycles arrive through Sunday. Officials in New Jersey advised some residents to leave vulnerable neighborhoods.
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