High winds, flooding hammer U.S. Northeast; storm due to worsen

[rooster59]

High winds, flooding hammer U.S. Northeast; storm due to worsen

By Scott Malone

 

People walk through Times Square during a winter nor'easter in New York City, U.S., March 2, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

 

BOSTON (Reuters) - Seawater poured onto coastal streets in Boston where businesses were surrounded with flood barriers and sandbags, and waves pounded homes along Massachusetts's shore as a storm packing heavy winds hit the U.S. East Coast from Maine to Virginia.

 

Almost 1.7 million homes and businesses were without power in the Northeast and Midwest, about 3,000 U.S. flights were canceled and the control tower at Dulles International Airport outside Washington was briefly evacuated due to dangerous high winds.

 

The first flood surge came at an extreme high tide, which occurred a little after 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) in Boston, the second time this year parts of the city flooded. The street-level flooding receded later in the afternoon, but high winds whipped up whitecaps and tossed sailboats moored in Boston Harbor.

 

"This is pretty dangerous. The governor should have told people to say home," said James Mohn, the 54-year-old chef of The Daily Catch, a waterfront restaurant, as he watched what he called one of the worst storms he had seen in his 30 years living in Boston.

 

Officials warned that strong ocean winds could keep waters high and posed a risk of even higher flood levels at the next two high tides, due near midnight and noon on Saturday. They urged people in Boston's coastal suburbs who had evacuated their homes during the morning floods not to return until the storm passed.

 

"Conditions are actually going to be worse during the middle part of the night tonight than they were at the high tide during the day because the water has already been pushed toward the coast and the storm will be pretty much at its peak," said Alex Sosnowski, senior meteorologist at the private forecasting service Accuweather.

 

High wind gusts approaching 70 miles per hour (113 km per hour) contributed to the flooding, by driving water in, and the extensive power outages, by downing trees and power lines.

 

The storm killed at least one person: A 77-year-old woman was killed by a falling tree branch outside her home Kingsville, Maryland, about 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Baltimore, said Captain Tim Rostkowski, a spokesman for the Baltimore County Fire Department.

 

He added that multiple homes had been damaged beyond repair by falling trees.

 

The winds also snarled travel. More than a quarter of flights into and out of New York's three major airports and Boston's airport were canceled, according to tracking service Flightaware.com. Passenger railroad Amtrak halted service between New York, Boston and Washington.

 

One flight landing at Washington's Dulles Airport came in through turbulence so rough that most passengers became sick and the pilots were on the verge of becoming sick, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

 

HIGH WATER RESCUES

 

Police in Quincy, Massachusetts, were using heavy front-end loaders to rescue people from flooded homes.

 

Residents of coastal areas that regularly flood in storms had been encouraged to evacuate their homes and head to higher ground, said Chris Besse, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

 

Sarah Moran, a 59-year-old mother of six, was fretting whether her family's oceanfront home in Scituate, Massachusetts, south of Boston, would survive.

 

"Every house south of mine has been washed away since the 1978 blizzard. That risk is part of the package – the house comes complete with ocean views, taxes, maintenance and risks,” she said in a phone interview from Burlington, Vermont.

 

The storm dropped as much as 18 inches (46 cm) of snow in parts of upstate New York and northeastern Pennsylvania, Accuweather said.

 

More than 1.7 million homes and businesses were without power across the region, with the largest number of outages spread across Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan and New York state, utilities said.

 

In California, evacuation orders that had been in effect for some 30,000 people near the Santa Barbara coast were lifted after rainstorms were less severe than feared, easing the risk of mudslides.

 

"We just didn't get the downpours that we got on Jan. 9," said Captain David Zaniboni of the Santa Barbara County Fire Department, referring to the start of the mudslides two months ago that killed 21 people.

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-03-03

[sirineou]

Today was a wet and nasty day

 We have the permit to erect the Crane this weekend at a new project on 57 st between 5th and 6th avenue. in Manhattan NYC.

The high winds and rain/snow shut as down .  (we knew that yesterday and called it off) 

The Permit is only good for two weekends then we need to reapply .

We are crossing our fingers the weather is better next weekend, otherwise it will be a very expensive disaster.

Missing Thailand