A powerful nor'easter swept across the Eastern United States this weekend, lashing the Mid-Atlantic and New England with pounding rain, gusty winds and a rising tide that drove seawater into homes and along streets. NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday devoted a segment to the storm on Sept. 26, reported by Ava Berger and Scott Simon under the headline, "Nor'easter pounds Mid-Atlantic, New England coastlines; Hurricane Nolo targets Hawaii."
As the storm system ripped through the region on Saturday, Northeast states confronted rising tides and widespread power outages. Utility crews worked to restore electricity to communities that had gone dark, while coastal residents and businesses began the unwelcome work of pumping water out of basements and ground floors. Forecasters expected significant winds and rain to persist throughout the weekend, with no quick letup in sight.
In Atlantic City, N.J., the water arrived overnight and kept climbing. Talia Manno, a lifelong resident of the New Jersey shore, opened her door Saturday morning to find waves lapping halfway up the front steps of her home. "It got up to my fifth step," she said. "I was really freaking out."
For Manno, the scene was reminiscent of a previous disaster. The last time water rose that high in her area, she said, was during Hurricane Sandy — the 2012 superstorm that battered the Mid-Atlantic, caused scores of deaths across several states, and left long stretches of the New Jersey shoreline under water and without power for days.
What unsettled her most was how quickly it happened. "Even if you live here and you see high tide and flooding, that was really scary and it happened so fast," Manno said. For longtime coastal residents, flooding is never routine: years of experience and adaptation have not removed the instinctive fear that comes with water climbing the steps of a house.
Photographs from the storm's early stages show residents responding to the first bands of heavy weather. On Friday, as the nor'easter began to build offshore, John Garrisi and Gaige Graf moved an outdoor table away from the shorefront — an early sign of the wind and spray to come. The image, by Associated Press photographer Robert F. Bukaty, captures the kind of small, urgent chore that repeated along the coast as the storm approached.
A nor'easter is named for the direction its winds come from, blowing from the northeast toward the southwest along the Atlantic seaboard. Because those onshore winds push seawater toward the coast as a low-pressure system deepens, such storms are among the most persistent threats to East Coast communities. When wind, surge and rising tide overlap, a routine high tide can become a flood that reaches into homes.
The storm hit the Mid-Atlantic and New England coastlines at the same time weekend events — including weddings and vacation cruises — were scheduled. The NPR report focused on how East Coasters are adapting: moving furniture, clearing drains, checking on neighbors and, in some cases, pressing ahead with plans in wind and rain. That tension between celebration and hazard recurs in coastal storm coverage, and it captures the calculation residents make each time a storm tracks up the Eastern seaboard.
Power outages were widespread across the Northeast on Saturday. When electricity fails during a coastal storm, the consequences extend well beyond inconvenience: sump pumps stop, heating and refrigeration fail, and medical equipment that depends on power goes dark. Power companies generally advise customers to stay clear of downed lines and to treat every outage as a potential live-wire hazard — caution that grows more urgent as wind continues to topple branches onto distribution lines.
Comparing the storm to Sandy has become an unavoidable reflex for Mid-Atlantic residents, and with good reason. Sandy demonstrated how quickly a coastal flood can transform a shoreline community, stranding residents, tainting drinking water and displacing thousands. The comparison is not a prediction of equivalent damage — storms differ in track, season and intensity — but it supplies residents with a working memory of what this coastline can withstand.
The economic toll is likely to be measured in more than repairs. Coastal businesses lose inventory and equipment to flooding, and power interruptions ripple through supply chains, restaurants, hotels and rental properties well inland from the water's edge. Repeatedly flooded streets also carry long-term costs, from mold remediation to permanently rising insurance premiums in high-risk zones.
Far from the Atlantic, the same weekend brought a separate weather threat. Hurricane Nolo was approaching Hawaii's islands, captured in a Friday satellite image as it strengthened. Forecasters expected it to avoid making landfall, but they warned that it would still bring dangerous flooding rains — a reminder that early autumn can deliver consequential storms on both coasts at once.
What happens in the days ahead will determine whether this weekend is remembered as a serious coastal flood or a close call. Damage assessments typically come only after the water recedes, when crews can check seawalls, drainage systems, roads and bridges. Residents face the slower work of cleaning, drying and restoring homes — and of weighing whether rebuilding is worth the cost of the next storm.
For now, images from the shorefront — an outdoor table hauled inland before the storm arrived, waves at a front door in Atlantic City — capture the story of the weekend. With significant winds and rain forecast to continue, coastal communities that have absorbed this risk for generations are again balancing caution against the determination to keep going.
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