Nearly 600,000 in New England still without power after storm

Hundreds of thousands of people faced power outages on Tuesday that could take days to restore after a major coastal storm lashed the northeast with whipping winds and drenching rain.

Nearly 600,000 customers in New England were without power early Tuesday, according to PowerOutage.usthat the utility sector follows.

The most outages occurred in Maine, where more than 430,000 customers were affected as of 7:30 a.m. In Massachusetts, especially in the eastern part of the state, more than 130,000 customers experienced outages, and about 28,000 more in Connecticut.

National Grid in Massachusetts said in a statement on social media Monday that about 2,000 workers responded to storm damage by cutting down trees and repairing electrical infrastructure. While some customers complained about potential wait times for their electricity to be restored, the company said it was normal for estimated restoration times to fluctuate depending on the volume of work, the cause of the damage and other factors.

Central Maine Power said on Facebook Monday that it also anticipated a multi-day restoration effort involving hundreds of line and tree crews. The company said high winds in the area prevented some crews from using box trucks for repairs.

By Tuesday morning, it was clear that the power outages would continue to disrupt routines for communities across Maine. Dozens of school districts across the state were either closed or operated on a delayed schedule. Some hospitals continued to experience complications Tuesday, including Northern Light Health, a network of 10 hospitals and more than 100 health care facilities across the state.

A company spokesperson told WABI 5a local news channel, that power outages could cause some patients who rely on electricity for home care to flock to hospitals, preventing staff from providing assistance to those needing emergency care.

The storm also caused damage in Canada, where nearly 175,000 homes in four provinces were also without power by early Tuesday.

The coastal storm, which battered South Carolina and North Carolina over the weekend, turned deadly Monday as it moved north along the East Coast with damaging winds and flooding.

An 89-year-old man in Massachusetts was killed when winds toppled a large tree. In Maine, a 40-year-old man was killed by a falling tree while trying to clean his roof.

At one point, the storm had knocked out power to more than 750,000 customers in New England, New York and New Jersey.

Weather conditions were also so bad that residents of Moretown, Virginia, with a population of 1,675, had to evacuate their homes due to river flooding, according to local authorities.

Further south, the storm snarled traffic and disrupted public transportation in and around New York City on Monday. Several commuter rail lines ran with major delays, as did buses throughout the five boroughs.

The Verrazzano Bridge, which connects Staten Island and Brooklyn, was also temporarily closed early Monday. When it reopened hours later, tractors, minibuses, vans, motorcycles and similar vehicles were no longer allowed to use it due to high winds.