While President Joe Biden called for caution, particularly in the face of the risk of flooding, more than 100,000 inhabitants of the northeastern United States were, this Sunday, without electricity at the passage of the storm Henri, according to a specialized site.
More than 72,000 people in the state of Rhode Island, 30,000 in Connecticut, and 10,000 in Massachusetts, were victims of a power outage during the day according to the site poweroutage.us. The storm hit the US coasts near Rhode Island at 12:15 p.m. (4:15 p.m. GMT), according to the US National Weather Service.
Winds of 120 km / h
In its 5:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. GMT) bulletin, the U.S. Hurricane Monitoring Center, NHC, said the storm was blowing with winds of up to 65 km / h, down from 120 km / h the previous day. seen at sea. “It is important to monitor the situation and be prepared in your home and neighborhood. Make sure you have provisions for your household, including necessary medicines, food, water, and battery-powered radios in case of long power cuts, ”the president said at the end of the afternoon. Biden, at a press conference.
Henri, who had been demoted in the morning from hurricane to tropical storm by the NHC, should move less quickly in the next few hours, the bulletin said, before specifying that the storm could “stagnate near the border between the state of New York and Connecticut tonight ”. The northeastern United States is usually relatively untouched by such storms, which tend to affect more southerly states such as Florida or Louisiana.
” Nice escape “
As the surface of the oceans warms, hurricanes become more powerful, scientists say. In particular, they pose an increasingly significant risk to coastal communities that are victims of wave-submersion phenomena, amplified by rising sea levels. While Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee said there was “significant flooding” in some areas, initial reactions from some residents seem to indicate that the storm was not as bad as expected. “We got away with it,” said James Kiker, a Newport resident, saying he saw “little damage” in his area, with a few broken branches.
Seven to 15 cm of precipitation is expected across the region, and up to 25 cm in places, according to the NHC, while the deterioration of the weather conditions had already pushed Saturday to the stop of the big concert organized in Central Park for mark the artists’ “reunion” with the New York public. In the afternoon, however, the NHC lifted all its alerts to coastal submersion.
Emergency state
The mayor of Boston, the largest city in the state of Massachusetts, had asked residents on Sunday morning to prepare for “destructive winds” and “potential power cuts”. “Please stay inside,” Kim Janey pleaded at a press conference. New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency on Saturday as the storm approached, adding that 500 National Guard troops had been mobilized to support the storm response efforts.
The deterioration of the weather conditions on Saturday evening pushed to stop the big concert organized in Central Park to mark the “reunion” of the artists with the public of New York. The singer Barry Manilow was thus interrupted in the middle of a song by a voice asking the spectators to evacuate the place quickly but calmly. The cultural and economic capital of the country still has in mind the painful memory of Hurricane Sandy, which killed 44 people in the city in 2012.