Talia Manno opened the front door of her Atlantic City, N.J., home on Saturday morning and found ocean water lapping halfway up her front steps. "It got up to my fifth step," she said. "I was really freaking out." For a lifelong resident of the New Jersey shore, the sight was not unfamiliar — but neither was it routine.
The storm behind those steps is a powerful nor'easter that swept through the Mid-Atlantic and New England coastlines Saturday, packing high winds, pounding surf and a coastal flooding driven by a combination of heavy rain, onshore flow and high astronomical tides. Northeast states reported rising tides and widespread power outages on Saturday as the system ripped through the region, and forecasters expect significant winds and rain to continue throughout the weekend.
Manno said the last time water pushed that far up her street was during Hurricane Sandy, the 2012 superstorm that devastated the New Jersey coastline and reshaped flood planning across the region. The comparison carried its own warning. For residents accustomed to a certain amount of high-tide nuisance flooding, Saturday's water level was a step beyond the ordinary, and it arrived quickly. "Even if you live here and you see high tide and flooding, that was really scary and it happened so fast," she said.
Nor'easters are among the most disruptive weather systems the Northeast sees. Unlike a tropical storm, which draws energy from warm ocean water, a nor'easter intensifies as winds rotate counterclockwise over the warm waters of the Atlantic and drive seawater toward the coast from the northeast. The storm's name comes from that wind direction, and the pattern most often ramps up in the fall, when cold air spilling off the continent collides with still-warm water. Coastal flooding is largely a function of timing: the same surge of water does far more damage when it arrives at the height of a high tide, which is why the clock matters as much as the forecast.
The preparations began well before Saturday's worst weather. In an image captured Friday as the storm's early stages arrived, John Garrisi and Gaige Graf moved an outdoor table away from a shorefront, one of a series of small, hurried rituals repeated by residents up and down the coast. Patio furniture, boats, trash cans and anything else that could become a projectile gets secured or carried inland; low-lying vehicles are moved to higher ground; generators and batteries come out of storage. In communities where the water has arrived before, that checklist is familiar work, done quickly.
This weekend's story, though, is not only about the water. As the report's framing puts it, it is about how East Coasters are braving the storm — including the wedding parties and passengers on the water who planned their days around a forecast that turned meaner than expected. Late September is prime wedding season, and outdoor ceremonies on the coast are booked against a calendar that cannot be moved. Couples and planners confronted a day of gusty winds over sand, airborne debris and the possibility that vows planned for a cliffside terrace or a beachfront lawn would have to be moved indoors, or to a later hour, at a moment when moving anything is difficult. Those who pressed on traded a picture-perfect backdrop for a memorable one.
Cruise lines faced their own version of the problem. The Northeast corridor is one of the busiest cruise markets in the world, with ships calling at ports from Baltimore and New York down the Delaware coast and up toward New England. Rough seas can slow or reroute itineraries, cause rolled cargo and cancelled port calls, and leave passengers cooped up at sea with whitecaps outside their windows. Operators typically favor slower speeds and altered routes over risking passengers when conditions deteriorate, meaning a rocky cruise is often as much about a change of scenery as a bumpy ride.
Saturday's power outages added a second layer of difficulty. Widespread outages across Northeast states meant that for many households, the loss of electricity came on top of flooding, and for some, it arrived before the water. The compounding matters: cold homes, spoiled food, medical equipment that needs power, and a rising line of demand for help from utility crews who are themselves working in high winds. As of Saturday evening, restoration in wind-damaged territory is typically a multi-day process, and officials continue to urge residents to check on neighbors, particularly older adults and anyone living alone.
The weekend forecast is the part residents are watching. Forecasters expect significant winds and rain throughout the weekend, which means the danger is not a single surge that comes and goes but a series of repeated pushes against the same already-saturated ground. Each round of heavy rain raises the risk of localized flooding well inland of the coast, and each onshore wind event adds to the water already sitting in low-lying streets. The pattern also means recovery is delayed: saturated soils, standing water and beach erosion can outlast the wind.
Away from the Northeast, forecasters are tracking a different threat. Hurricane Nolo was seen approaching Hawaii's islands in a satellite image captured Friday. Nolo is expected to strengthen but to avoid making landfall, though forecasters warn that it will still bring dangerous flooding rains. Two weather stories dominating the same weekend — a wind-and-tide storm battering the Atlantic seaboard and a strengthening hurricane bearing down on the Pacific — underline how widely this weekend's risk is distributed.
By Saturday evening, when this account was updated, the shape of the storm was still settling, but the outline was clear: a fast, wind-driven event that arrived with less warning than residents would have liked, flooded low-lying streets within hours, and left a region dealing with cleanup, outages and a forecast promising more of the same. The people who stayed — moving furniture, holding weddings, riding rough seas — were, in the end, watching the same thing: the water, and how high it would climb next.
This piece was reported by Ava Berger and Scott Simon and heard on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday.
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