Hermine was the first hurricane to strike Florida in more than a decade, and two deaths – one in Florida and one in North Carolina – have been blamed on the storm. It’s forward progression has slowed to a crawl at 5 miles per hour, a rarity for a system at this latitude. Hermine will still be close enough to the coastline today for the New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and DE coastlines to see strong winds, storm surge, high waves, rip-tides, and coastal flooding, especially around high tides.
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As of Sunday afternoon, Hermine was at sea about 350 miles east of Maryland and south of Long Island, with 70-mph winds generating waves that have pounded the Eastern Seaboard. The threat of heavy rainfall has dimished with the storm tracking farther offshore. Beachgoers walk away from big waves and rough surf caused by Hermine, Sunday, Sept. 4, 2016, in Bradley Beach, N.J. No swimming was allowed because of the passing storm.
Post-Tropical Storm Hermine moved farther to the east than expected and away from the East Coast on Sunday morning, but forecasters said the storm was likely to hang around off the coast for the next few days.
The fifth largest cruise ship in the world, Anthem of the Seas, sailed through Hermine, with reported 160 km/h wind gusts.
Governors all along the coast announced emergency preparations.
“Right now, it’s looking like we’re not having much of any beach fun”, she said.
Richard Jewett, 68, was rescued from his home in New Port Richey, just north of Tampa, as emergency teams carried out a mandatory evacuation.
Residents and tourists in Chatham, Massachusetts, are taking the threat of Hermine all in stride and waiting to see what the storm will bring.
Virginia Beach also remained under a tropical storm warning Sunday, with the weather service describing conditions as “breezy to windy”.
Becker said localized flooding hit low-lying areas across the state, and there were widespread reports of “downed power lines, downed trees, trees on cars and some flooded cars”, along with isolated incidents of tree-damaged homes.
Todd Solomon, who lives in an area of Virginia Beach that often floods, said water crept up to the foundations of some homes.
And since sea levels have risen up to a foot due to global warming, the storm surges pushed by Hermine could be even more damaging, climate scientists say. “And if your power was out, you kind of bounced around to find a restaurant or grocery store that still had power”.
“We are already experiencing more and more flooding due to climate change in every storm”, said Michael Oppenheimer, a geosciences professor at Princeton University.
Almost 40,000 homes were in the dark Sunday and power crews say it could be the middle of the week before most power is back on.
“I always try to err on the side of caution, so I’m more relieved than I am concerned, and we can always ramp up, if it were to turn westward, we can always ramp up the need for evacuating people in short order”.
On Saturday, high winds tipped over an 18-wheeler, killing its driver and shutting down the USA 64 bridge in North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
And on Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks, a small tornado spawned by Hermine knocked over two trailers and injured four people, authorities said.
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One person died in Florida as Hermine approached.
