More than 548,000 homes and businesses in New England and Connecticut were without power Wednesday afternoon as a powerful nor’easter continued its wrath along the East Coast.
About 471,389 of the outages were in Massachusetts, the state’s Emergency Management Agency said just after 2:30 p.m. Rhode Island saw 69,590 customers without power about that time, while Connecticut had 7,622 customers without power Wednesday during the mid-afternoon, according to PowerOutage.US.
The National Weather Service in Boston warned of a “dangerous situation” near and southeast of I-95, the East Coast’s main highway.
“Winds gusting over hurricane force across southeast Massachusetts. Numerous downed trees,” the service warned on Twitter. “TRAVEL IS NOT RECOMMENDED early this morning in southeast MA.”
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker wrote on Twitter that his administration “is working with utilities to speed up recovery times, but crews are still assessing the level of damage.”
“If you are in an impacted community, please be careful: check in on neighbors, stay away from downed power lines and stay off the roads,” Baker warned.
The storm has already caused flooding in New York and New Jersey, where emergency services have carried out dozens of rescues.
Coastal areas of Massachusetts are now bearing the brunt of the storm, with reported wind gusts of up to 97 mph that have brought down trees and power lines.
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.
In Boston, downed trees disrupted parts of the Red Line and Mattapan Trolley service, according to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which deployed replacement shuttle buses.
The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency warned people to “avoid downed power lines, check on neighbors, and use generators outside away from buildings.”
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 weather service said the window for the strongest winds along the coast was between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. local time, “with somewhat lesser winds farther inland.”
It said early Wednesday that the wind would “slowly diminish today but it remains windy” as the storm pushes off the coast.
The Northeast won’t have much time to dry out, as there’s more rain in the forecast for the region on Friday.