John Garrisi, left, and Gaige Graf move an outdoor table away from the shorefront during the early stages of a nor’easter storm on Friday.
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Robert F. Bukaty/AP
Talia Manno opened her door on Saturday morning to waves lapping halfway up the front steps to her Atlantic City, N.J., home.
“It got up to my fifth step,” Manno said. “I was really freaking out.”
Manno, a lifelong resident, said the last time water came that high was during Hurricane Sandy.
“Even if you live here and you see high tide and flooding, that was really scary and it happened so fast,” she said.
Manno is among tens of millions of people from the mid-Atlantic through the coast of Maine who are in the path of a powerful and rare September nor’easter that is bringing coastal flooding, heavy rain and high winds this weekend.
Nearly 80,000 people were without power across New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Massachusetts, as of Saturday evening, according to the PowerOutage.com map. The storm is expected to continue hitting the Jersey Shore, New York City, and Eastern Massachusetts into Sunday, according to NWS.
Videos posted on social media Saturday showed streets inundated with water in New Jersey, and massive waves hitting the coast. In New York City, people were seen kayaking in the streets. New Jersey and New York declared states of emergency in counties across the two states, including in New York City.
Francis Tarasiewicz, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Massachusetts, said wind gusts along the coast could reach up to 60 miles per hour this weekend. This nor’easter comes earlier than the typical October through May storm season, he said, and will last longer than normal.
Spectators watch wave break during a nor’easter storm on Saturday in Hampton, N.H.
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Robert F. Bukat/AP
“Many nor’easters affect the area over the course of about a day,” he said. “It’s a quick punch of strong winds, in many cases, heavy snow or rain.” But, Tarasiewicz said, “with this one, we’re looking at about a 48-hour period of winds greater than 35 to 40 miles per hour across the area.”
The nor’easter is also making travel difficult. More than 1,000 flights were canceled Saturday with thousands more delayed, according to data from FlightAware. Ferry services on Cape Cod and in Rhode Island were disrupted, and Amtrak canceled several trains due to the weather and downed wires.
Off the coast of New York, the strong winds made for a rough cruise ride for Jessica Lisboa. She brought green apples, ginger ale and an acupressure anti-nausea bracelet to prepare for the Bermuda-bound cruise.
“Let me not sugarcoat it. Was it wild? Yeah, sure. It was a little wild,” Lisboa said. “It felt honestly like a roller coaster.” Still, she considered it a worthwhile adventure.
The nor’easter also took out a number of events planned for the weekend. Oceans Calling, one of Maryland’s biggest music festivals, was canceled on Friday. An AC/DC concert in New Jersey was rescheduled. The Boston Red Sox announced they would move their game against the Chicago Cubs.
Some East Coasters found a way to adapt.
When Olga Ostrovetsky picked a date in September for her small outdoor wedding, she envisioned a beautiful, fall day.
But as she got ready to tie the knot in Wallkill, N.Y., she said, “It’s very, very windy.”
At first bummed, she’s now finding the positives in the disruption.
“It’s kind of fitting, to be honest, because my fiancé and I met and it was a torrential downpour,” she said. “We met on a day like this, and we’re also getting married on a day like this,” she said.
As for Manno, the Atlantic City resident, is planning to spend Saturday night with family away from the coast. After this nor’easter, she said she doesn’t know how much longer she’ll live in the area.
“As the years pass, it seems like it’s just getting more and more flooding,” she said. “It’s crazy.”
This story originally appeared on NPR
