A ma­jor storm drenched the North­east and slammed it with fierce winds, knock­ing out pow­er to hun­dreds of thou­sands fol­low­ing a bout of vi­o­lent weath­er that struck most of the U.S.

The storm, which start­ed Tues­day night and was mov­ing out Wednes­day, washed out roads and took down trees and pow­er lines. Wind gusts reached 45 mph to 55 mph (72 kph to 88 kph) and more windy weath­er was ex­pect­ed through­out Wednes­day.

It fol­lowed a day of tor­na­does and dead­ly ac­ci­dents in the South and bliz­zards in the Mid­west and North­west.

Here’s how var­i­ous ar­eas are be­ing af­fect­ed by the storms:

NEW JER­SEY

New Jer­sey Gov. Phil Mur­phy de­clared a state of emer­gency ahead of the storm. Many streets and roads were flood­ed, and rivers were ris­ing, af­ter some ar­eas got up to 3 inch­es (7.6 cen­time­tres) of rain since Tues­day night. The rain fell on ground sat­u­rat­ed by an­oth­er storm a few weeks ago. An­oth­er storm is fore­cast for the week­end.

Lou De­Fazio, 65, of Manville, New Jer­sey, lives steps away from the Mill­stone Riv­er that flood­ed dis­as­trous­ly in 2021 af­ter the rem­nants of Ida slammed in­to the state and swerved river­banks. He said the riv­er was ex­pect­ed to crest lat­er Wednes­day.

“It’s get­ting worse and worse,” he said.

Mark Nipps, a life­long res­i­dent of Manville, New Jer­sey, who watched Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s vis­it to the town in 2021 af­ter Ida wrecked dozens of homes, left in large part be­cause of the reg­u­lar flood­ing.

“Men­tal­ly, every two years see­ing your home­town dev­as­tat­ed — that’s not good at all,” he said in a phone in­ter­view from his home out­side Greenville, South Car­oli­na.

Mur­phy said 56,000 homes were with­out pow­er and sev­er­al hun­dred ac­ci­dents and high­way as­sists were re­port­ed, but no storm deaths. He said peo­ple of­ten ig­nore flood warn­ings, to their per­il.

“And we saw in the storm Ida, peo­ple pay with their lives by dri­ving their cars in­to a street they shouldn’t have, or stay­ing in their home when they shouldn’t have,” Mur­phy said in an in­ter­view with CBS New York.

NEW YORK

Even be­fore high tide Wednes­day morn­ing, parts of Long Is­land’s south­ern shore were al­ready in­un­dat­ed by coastal flood­ing.

In Nas­sau Coun­ty, video showed cars slosh­ing through wa­ter that had col­lect­ed on the streets of Freeport. Fur­ther east, near the Hamp­tons, the Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice re­port­ed ma­jor flood­ing out of Shin­necock Bay. Sev­er­al schools across Long Is­land were ei­ther can­cel­ing or de­lay­ing class­es as a re­sult of the storm.

New York City of­fi­cials evac­u­at­ed near­ly 2,000 mi­grants housed at a sprawl­ing tent com­plex be­fore the storm hit amid fears that the fa­cil­i­ty could col­lapse in heavy winds.

Pho­tos showed the mi­grant fam­i­lies sleep­ing on the floor of a Brook­lyn high school, whose stu­dents were forced to go re­mote on Wednes­day as a re­sult of the brief re­lo­ca­tion. The mi­grants re­turned to the tent fa­cil­i­ty at around 4:30 a.m. Wednes­day af­ter the winds had sub­sided, of­fi­cials said.

PENN­SYL­VA­NIA

A cou­ple of Penn­syl­va­nia com­mu­ni­ties got more than 4 inch­es (10 cen­time­tres) of rain and oth­ers re­ceived near­ly that amount. Emer­gency re­spon­ders res­cued some dri­vers from strand­ed ve­hi­cles as roads flood­ed in low-ly­ing ar­eas, and downed trees and wires cut pow­er to thou­sands of cus­tomers.

Fore­cast­ers said sev­er­al rivers in east­ern Penn­syl­va­nia saw at least mod­er­ate flood­ing. An­oth­er storm bring­ing as much as 1.5 inch­es (3.8 cen­time­tres) of rain Fri­day night through Sat­ur­day would ex­ac­er­bate flood­ing and bring very strong winds, of­fi­cials said.

NEW ENG­LAND

In Dan­bury, Con­necti­cut, of­fi­cials said the snow that melt­ed in the overnight rain had over­whelmed the city’s drainage ca­pac­i­ty, leav­ing a dozen in­ter­sec­tions flood­ed. At least one mo­torist was res­cued from a ve­hi­cle.

A dam breach in Bozrah, Con­necti­cut, prompt­ed a pre­cau­tion­ary evac­u­a­tion along the Yan­tic Riv­er, fire of­fi­cials said. The riv­er swelled well above flood stage, in­un­dat­ing streets and clos­ing schools. Al­so, as a pre­cau­tion, a pow­er com­pa­ny shut down a sub­sta­tion along the riv­er leav­ing about 5,000 homes and busi­ness­es with­out pow­er.

The storm can­celled events and gov­ern­ment func­tions in Maine, where some ar­eas were still re­cov­er­ing from a snow­storm over the week­end and flood­ing the pre­vi­ous month.

Pow­er­ful winds gust­ed to 95 mph (153 kph) at Maine’s Isle au Haut, an is­land in Penob­scot Bay, and to 83 mph (134 kph) off the coast of Rye New, Hamp­shire, said Jon Palmer from the Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice in Gray, Maine.

High winds pushed an emp­ty pas­sen­ger air­craft in­to a jet bridge in the ear­ly morn­ing hours at Maine’s largest air­port, Port­land Jet­port of­fi­cials said Wednes­day. No one was hurt.

More than a half dozen cars were in about a foot of wa­ter in a park­ing lot near Widgery Wharf on the Port­land’s wa­ter­front. Lob­ster fish­er­men at­tempt­ed to turn back some of the flood­ing us­ing pumps.

Far­ther in­land, heavy wet snow blan­ket­ed the re­gion.

Flash flood warn­ings were is­sued. Maine Gov. Janet Mills en­cour­aged res­i­dents to stay off the roads if they could.

“Please be sure to give plough trucks, util­i­ty crews, and emer­gency first re­spon­ders plen­ty of space as they work to keep us safe,” she said.

In New Hamp­shire, flood­ing pushed over sea­walls and on­to roads across Hamp­ton, clos­ing a main street near Hamp­ton Beach.

In Ver­mont, the storm brought wind gusts of up to 70 miles per hour and heav­ing wet snow, fol­lowed by rain, leav­ing near­ly 30,000 homes with­out pow­er Wednes­day morn­ing. Many schools were closed or had de­layed open­ings.

MID­WEST

Slushy high­ways led to the deaths of a dri­ver in Wis­con­sin and an­oth­er in Michi­gan fol­low­ing col­li­sions.

The storm, which be­gan Mon­day, buried cities across the Mid­west in snow, strand­ing peo­ple on high­ways. Some ar­eas saw up to a foot (30 cen­time­tres) of snow on Mon­day, in­clud­ing Kansas, east­ern Ne­bras­ka and South Dako­ta, west­ern Iowa, and south­west­ern Min­neso­ta.

Madi­son, Wis­con­sin, was un­der a win­ter storm warn­ing un­til ear­ly Wednes­day, with as much as 9 inch­es (23 cen­time­tres) of snow and 40 mph (64 kph) winds on tap.

The weath­er has al­ready af­fect­ed cam­paign­ing for Iowa’s Jan. 15 precinct cau­cus­es, where the snow is ex­pect­ed to be fol­lowed by frigid tem­per­a­tures that could drift be­low ze­ro de­grees (mi­nus 18 Cel­sius).

Fore­cast­ers warned snow-struck re­gions of the Mid­west and the Great Plains that tem­per­a­tures could plunge dan­ger­ous­ly low be­cause of wind chill, dip­ping to around mi­nus 20 (29 Cel­sius) and even far low­er in Chica­go, Kansas City and some ar­eas of Mon­tana.

SOUTH

Sev­er­al deaths have been blamed on storms that struck the area with heavy rain, tor­na­do re­ports, hail and wind. Sur­vey teams were head­ing out Wednes­day in Flori­da, Geor­gia, North Car­oli­na and South Car­oli­na to de­ter­mine whether tor­na­dos struck, Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice of­fi­cials said.

An 81-year-old woman in Al­aba­ma was killed when her mo­bile home was tossed from its foun­da­tion by a sus­pect­ed tor­na­do. A man died south of At­lanta when a tree fell on his car. An­oth­er per­son died in North Car­oli­na af­ter a sus­pect­ed tor­na­do struck a mo­bile home park.

Roofs were blown off homes, fur­ni­ture, fences and de­bris were strewn about dur­ing the height of the storm in the South.

Many ar­eas of Flori­da re­mained un­der flood watch­es, warn­ings and ad­vi­sories ear­ly Wednes­day amid con­cerns that streams and rivers were top­ping their banks. Gov. Ron De­San­tis, who gave his State of the State ad­dress Tues­day as tor­na­do warn­ings were ac­tive out­side the Capi­tol, is­sued an ex­ec­u­tive or­der to in­clude 49 coun­ties in North Flori­da un­der a state of emer­gency.

WEST

Storms in the Pa­cif­ic North­west and Rocky Moun­tains dumped snow, in­clud­ing 29 inch­es (74 cen­time­tres) re­port­ed at Stevens Pass in Wash­ing­ton state and 30 inch­es (76 cen­time­tres) out­side of San­ta Fe, New Mex­i­co, ac­cord­ing to the Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice.

Au­thor­i­ties is­sued warn­ings for very dan­ger­ous avalanche con­di­tions in moun­tain­ous ar­eas of Ida­ho, Mon­tana, Wyoming, Utah, Wash­ing­ton, and Ore­gon. Back­coun­try trav­ellers were ad­vised to stay off steep slopes and away from the bot­tom of steep slopes.

In ar­eas of north­ern Mon­tana, tem­per­a­tures could drop be­low mi­nus 30 de­grees (mi­nus 34 Cel­sius) by Sat­ur­day morn­ing. High tem­per­a­tures were ex­pect­ed to re­main be­low freez­ing as far south as Ok­la­homa. —CON­CORD, N.H. (AP)

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Sto­ry by SCOTT MCFETRIDGE AND KATHY MC­COR­MA­CK | As­so­ci­at­ed Press
Scott McFetridge re­port­ed from Des Moines, Iowa.  AP writ­ers Sarah Brum­field, in Sil­ver Spring, Mary­land and Matthew Brown in Billings, Mont., con­tributed to this re­port.