Hermine, which came ashore in Florida as a Category 1 hurricane, has now been downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone by the National Hurricane Center but that does not mean electric utilities in the Northeast are in the clear.
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As of 11 a.m. EDT Monday, Hermine’s top sustained winds were steady at 70 miles per hour (110 kph) as it moved northwest at 6 miles per hour (9 kph).
“Large waves generated by Hermine will affect the U.S. East Coast from the Mid-Atlantic states and expand northward along the coast of southern New England through Monday”, says NHC. Whatever the heck it is, it’s already caused damage in Florida and power outages in Georgia and South and North Carolina, and is expected to produce life threatening storm surges in New Jersey and NY over the course of today.
Forecasters expected Hermine to linger off the Middle Atlantic states and southern New England before gradually weakening by Tuesday morning.
As of Monday night, the NHC maintained tropical storm warnings for the coast of Long Island from Fire Island Inlet to Port Jefferson Harbor, from New Haven, Conn., to Sagamore Beach, Mass., Block Island, Rhode Island, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.
New York City beaches will remain closed Tuesday due to “life-threatening” rip currents caused by post-tropical storm Hermine, officials said.
The third reported death was that of a man struck by a auto on a SC highway on Friday as he tried to move a fallen tree, a Colleton County fire department spokesman said.
“Chris Thompson said, “[the storm] didn’t impact us a whole lot.
On Cape Cod and its islands, high surf and wind put a crimp in the Labor Day plans of many people looking to celebrate summer’s end, but some beaches farther south reopened.
Governors all along the Eastern Seaboard announced emergency preparations.
The weather service said there is still a threat of minor coastal flooding across low-lying areas. Newton was located about 215 miles southeast of Cabo San Lucas on Monday evening. “Well, the beach is awful because of the waves, and this storm has spread a lot of high- and mid-level clouds over New Jersey right now and over Long Island”, he said.
And Gould said strong riptide might be the most unsafe result of Hermine.
Michael Mann at Pennsylvania State University said the one-foot rise that New York City has experienced over the past century caused an additional 25 square miles and several billions of dollars of damage with Superstorm Sandy.
Earlier in Florida, a homeless man was killed by a falling tree.
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Another person died when the tractor trailer they were driving overturned because of high winds in North Carolina. But he said he did not know of any buildings that were actually flooded. “And if your power was out, you kind of bounced around to find a restaurant or grocery store that still had power”. Thousands of homes and businesses lost power.
