At Least 5 Die as Nor'easter Topples Trees and Strands Travelers

A fierce nor’easter battered the Atlantic Coast on Friday, toppling power lines, stranding thousands of travelers, inundating coastal roads and homes with churning seawater and killing at least five people.

The storm’s effects were felt as far south as Georgia and as far north as Maine. In Rhode Island, the winds were so severe that officials shut down the Newport Bridge. In New York City, most flights were grounded for a time on Friday afternoon. And in the Washington suburbs, downed trees were strewn across the streets.

More than 3,000 flights were canceled and more than 3,500 others delayed across the country on Friday, according to FlightAware, many at coastal airports in the storm’s path. Amtrak suspended service along its Northeast Corridor, and at least 1 million people lost electricity. Meteorologists at the National Weather Service said coastal flooding had damaged homes, closed roads and sent at least one car floating down a street, warning that more water-related destruction could be forthcoming.

— At least five people died Friday in episodes related to the storm, authorities said.

In Putnam County in upstate New York, the sheriff said an 11-year-old boy died after a large tree fell and crashed into a home, trapping the boy underneath.

A similar thing happened to a child in Chesterfield County, Virginia. The fire chief there said the child was in a bed when a tree limb struck the trailer the bed was in, fatally injuring him.

A deputy police chief in James City County, Virginia, said a 44-year-old man, who had been a passenger in a truck, died after the wind toppled a large oak tree onto the truck.

In Baltimore County, Maryland, fire and police officials said a 77-year-old woman had been fatally struck by a large tree branch.

And a police sergeant in Newport, Rhode Island, said a man in his 70s was struck by a tree that fell in his yard.

— More than 2 million people were without power as of 4:45 p.m. Friday, the Energy Department said on Twitter. The failures spanned 17 states and Washington, D.C. More that 500,000 customers were without power in Virginia alone. Emergencies have been declared in cities across New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

— Weather officials said more than 3 feet of snow blanketed parts of New York state on Friday; many areas of New England got 2 to 4 inches of rain; and some coastal towns in Massachusetts felt wind gusts of more than 90 mph.

— New York’s La Guardia Airport suspended all flights Friday afternoon, Kennedy International Airport halted all incoming domestic flights, and around a quarter of the flights at Newark Liberty International Airport were called off.

— A National Weather Service meteorologist whose office covers Southern New England said Friday night that coastal areas of Massachusetts experienced “moderate to major” flooding earlier in the day; several dunes and a few sea walls were breached; many homes and roads had been flooded; and at least one car had been reported to have been floating down the street.

— New York City and Long Island can expect 2-3 inches of rain with some snow mixed in, but the biggest concern will be the damaging winds.

— In the Massachusetts town of Wenham, the authorities said that multiple homes were evacuated for a different but related reason: An underground gas line had caught fire and sent a 30-foot fireball into the air.

Meteorologists confirmed Friday that the storm had become the second “bomb cyclone” in two months.

The Jan. 4 storm gained much attention in part because some meteorologists described it as a “bomb cyclone.” (The name essentially derives from how quickly the barometric pressure falls.)

Dan Kottlowski, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather, said that the rapid pressure drop of the East Coast storm on Friday met the threshold for the bomb-cyclone classification.

“What makes this storm unique is that it’s intensifying very quickly,” Kottlowski said. “It will be in a position to stay strong for several days.”

Anna Moyer, a graduate student at Columbia University, had planned to spend her weekend at a friend’s bachelorette party in New Orleans. Instead, she was spending Friday afternoon on hold with Delta Air Lines, which canceled her flight out of New York’s Kennedy Airport.

After three hours on the phone with Delta, she said she still had not spoken with an employee.

“I’ve angry-tweeted at them, Facebook messaged them, and I’ve been obsessively refreshing their site,” said Moyer, 30, a bridesmaid for the friend having the party.

Moyer said she had been rebooked on a Saturday flight, but was still hoping to find a way to leave on Friday night. She said she had been helping to plan the party for months.

When she finally did reach a Delta employee later Friday, Moyer said she was given no earlier flight option.

At Penn Station in New York, Kate Willsky, 32, who lives in Brooklyn, spent more than an hour on an unmoving Amtrak train before she realized that she was not going to make it to her father’s 70th birthday celebration this weekend in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

On the stalled train, she said, passengers bided their time — buying drinks and snacks from the dining car and sharing whatever updates they could find online — until the conductors announced that they were unlikely to move anytime soon.

“Out in Penn Station, everyone just looked like they wanted to die,” Willsky said. “Everyone was waiting in long lines. Everyone’s weekend plans had been ruined.”

On Friday afternoon, it was announced at the station that “due to extreme-weather-related issues,” all trains between New York and Boston, and between Philadelphia and Washington, had been suspended indefinitely.

At Revere Beach, north of Boston, the tumultuous Atlantic Ocean was churning up on the shore Friday morning, and threatening to flood homes and businesses along the beach.

“The water is bad, really bad,” said Fernando Loaiza, the manager of Antonia’s restaurant. Motorists were inching slowly along the boulevard that runs the length of the beach.

In Watertown, in suburban Boston, several power lines had collapsed, creating a massive tangle of wires in the middle of the street.

On Cape Cod and the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, the ocean was pounding so hard that forecasters warned of visible topographic changes taking place in the shoreline. But so far, many residents were taking the storm in stride.

May Ruth Seidel, 93, a part-time resident of Wellfleet for more than three decades — who is spending her first winter on the Cape as a full-time resident — attended her exercise class as usual Friday. She said about 10 others also showed up, down from the typical 16.

“It’s windy, and the ocean looked fearsome,” Seidel said, “but I’m not worried.”

“The biggest problem is the puddles in the road,” she added. “If you’re not familiar, they may be deeper than they look.”

On Nantucket, Catherine Flanagan Stover, the town clerk, said that some streets were starting to flood and winds were hitting 65 mph.

The first ferry left the island at 6:30 Friday morning, she said, but subsequent ferries have been canceled.

“We don’t feel isolated,” she said of longtime residents, “but some of the newcomers panic. They worry that there aren’t enough eggs and milk and loaves of bread for their French toast cook-offs. But the rest of us take it in stride.”

Still, in many coastal communities, residents were being urged to evacuate their homes as forecasters predicted that the next high tide, at midnight, could do severe damage and leave people trapped.

Early Friday morning, the fire department in Arlington County, Virginia, began warning that “Windmageddon” was threatening the Washington suburbs.

The storm lived up to its name. Within hours, firefighters were responding to stuck elevators in buildings that lost power. Downed power lines and fallen trees blocked residential streets.

Conditions were not much better across the Potomac River in Washington, where many government workers were given the day off and parent-teacher conferences at public schools were canceled.

Heavy snowfall blanketed parts of New York overnight, closing public schools in Buffalo and Rochester. The National Weather Service reported 2 feet in 24 hours in the small town of Wyoming, New York. Beth Meyer, 47, who co-owns The Wyoming Inn, said the snow came in quickly overnight. She woke up to find everything covered in white. “It looks beautiful. It’s just picture perfect,” she said. “But it just slows your whole day down. Takes twice as long to do anything.”

A meteorologist at the Weather Service’s Albany office said late Friday that Richmondville, New York, had gotten 37.5 inches of snow — and counting.

In New York City, James Long, a spokesman for the fire department, said the weather conspired to make things very busy. In Queens, he said, a pedestrian was struck by a fallen tree and taken to Jamaica Hospital Center with injuries that were believed to be serious.

In addition, Long said that fire department rescuers had to manage two episodes in which high winds tipped over a pair of tractor-trailers on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

As of late Friday, the department was even investigating reports that a barge had gotten loose on the Hudson River near the Tappan Zee Bridge, Long said. A fire department rescue boat had been dispatched, he added.