Hundreds of thousands are without power in Northeast as temperatures are set to plummet today

Originally Published: 19 DEC 23 00:40 ET Updated: 19 DEC 23 12:31 ET By Elizabeth Wolfe and Robert Shackelford, CNN

(CNN) — At least five people are dead after a powerful storm brought dangerous flooding and travel disruptions to the East Coast and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in the Northeast, which faces cold temperatures and concentrated snowfall on Tuesday.

The storm system carved a chaotic path up the East Coast, leaving a man in Pennsylvania and women in South Carolina and New York – all in their 70s – dead after their vehicles were submerged in water, officials reported.

Two other deaths were reported in Maine and Massachusetts.

As the storm walloped the Northeast on Monday, it unleashed 2 to 6 inches of rainfall across the region in a 24-hour period. The heavy rainfall triggered flooding that engulfed cars, trapped drivers on inundated roadways in New Jersey and Connecticut and prompted water rescues in New Hampshire and Maine.

Farmington, Maine, “is virtually an island at the moment,” Town Manager Erica LaCroix told CNN on Tuesday morning, after severe flooding hit.

Water was beginning to recede Tuesday, although many roads remained impassable, LaCroix said.

Fire crews “went door to door in the areas of town most vulnerable to flooding” Monday night “and requested that residents evacuate, but it was not mandatory,” LaCroix said. Officials advised the public not to attempt to travel to or through Farmington.

The weather hit holiday travel Monday, with over 1,200 flights delayed and 500 canceled into and out of New York, Boston and Washington, DC, area airports.

Amtrak suspended all train operations in Vermont on Monday, the state’s Secretary of Transportation Joe Flynn said.

Though the storm moved into Canada late Monday and rainfall has largely subsided in the Northeast, impacts will linger over New England on Tuesday. The threat of flooding remains for communities where river levels are still peaking.

Parts of western New York and Pennsylvania on Tuesday may also see snowfall, along with parts of the Great Lakes and Appalachians.

Temperatures are set to plummet to the 30s and 40s across much of the Northeast, as more than 585,000 homes and businesses in the region remained without power early Tuesday, according to poweroutage.us. The vast majority of outages are in Maine, where more than 425,000 were in the dark.

Fully restoring power to some Maine residents may take several days, warned Central Maine Power, a utility that serves more than 600,000 customers.

The conditions have prompted school closures or delays in several districts in Maine and New Hampshire.

Schools in Paterson, New Jersey, were closed until further notice after Mayor Andre Sayegh declared an emergency Monday afternoon in anticipation of flooding from the rising Passaic River.

Flooding in the area is expected to be the worst in at least a decade. The Passaic is expected to crest around 12 feet at Singac on Tuesday afternoon, a potentially record-breaking level that could flood some adjacent roads, according to the National Weather Service.

In nearby Little Falls, the mayor urged residents to evacuate before midnight Monday due to the threat of flooding, which authorities previously warned could be “catastrophic.”

“Residents remain in their homes at their own peril,” Mayor James Belford Damiano said. “Flooding may cause dangers that may prohibit rescues as early as the overnight hours.”

The bulk of rivers rising across the Northeast will crest on Tuesday. As of early Tuesday, nine rivers in the region were at major flood stage.

Flood risk may be exacerbated in some New England states as heavy rain falls on top of an established snowpack. This may lead to rapid snowmelt and a sharp increase in the threat of flooding.

Dangerous conditions leave at least 5 dead

The storm has been advancing up the East Coast and into the Northeast since the weekend, leaving at least five people dead from South Carolina to Maine.

A 76-year-old woman was killed Monday in Catskill, New York, after she drove into a flooded roadway and her car was swept into a creek. Rescuers found her body about two hours later, when they reached the car.

In Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, a 72-year-old woman was found dead on Sunday after becoming trapped as her car was fully submerged in water, according to the Charleston’s Post and Courier newspaper. The area received more than 6 inches of rain that day.

A 73-year-old man died after his car became immersed in high water caused by heavy rainfall in Pennsylvania on Monday, according to coroner’s office in Lancaster County.

A 40-year-old man was killed in Windham, Maine, on Monday after a piece of a tree fell on him while he was on his roof trying to clear another part of the tree off his home, authorities said.

Also on Monday, strong winds and rain in Massachusetts caused a tree to fall on a small travel trailer in Plymouth County, severely injuring an 89-year-old man inside, the local district attorney said. The man was rescued from the trailer but later died from his injuries.

Snow in Great Lakes and Appalachians

Cold air trailing behind the storm ushered in winter weather alerts across 10 states in the Great Lakes, Appalachians and interior Northeast.

Up to a foot of snowfall fell in parts of northwestern New York and Ohio as well as central Pennsylvania and West Virginia, where winter storm warnings were in effect Tuesday morning. Wind gusts up to 50 mph are forecast in the impacted area.

Surrounding areas could get between 1 to 6 inches of snow while impacted areas around the Great Lakes are forecast to receive up to 7 inches, according to the weather service.

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