Ernesto becomes a hurricane again, sending powerful swells, rip currents to U.S. East Coast
After weakening back down to a tropical storm, Ernesto again became a hurricane Sunday as it churned away from the northern Caribbean and headed farther into the Atlantic Ocean, sending powerful swells rolling toward the U.S. East Coast and generating "dangerous beach conditions," forecasters said.
The National Weather Service posted a coastal flood advisory and warned of high risk from the rip currents along the Atlantic Coast through Monday evening. Forecasters said the currents "can sweep even the best swimmers away from shore into deeper water."
Meteorologist Mike Lee of the weather service office in Mount Holly, New Jersey, told The Associated Press that much of the eastern seaboard was at high risk for rip currents due to strong swells. A warning extended from Florida to the Boston area and portions of Maine.
"It's going to be really dangerous out in the water today," Lee said.
At Manasquan Inlet in New Jersey, officials said a fisherman washed off the north jetty Saturday but was quickly rescued by lifeguards. The fisherman was taken to the hospital for treatment. Lifeguards across the New Jersey coastline rescued multiple people who got caught in the rip currents.
Forecasters, citing local emergency management, said a 41-year-old man drowned Saturday in a rip current at Surf City, North Carolina.
Two men drowned Friday in separate incidents on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, but it was unclear whether rip currents from Ernesto were involved, officials told CBS News on Saturday.
The rough surf contributed Friday evening to an unoccupied beach house along the Cape Hatteras National Seashore along North Carolina's Outer Banks collapsing into ocean waters.
Flash flood warnings were posted for parts of Connecticut and southeastern New York, and flash flood watches and advisories were in effect for areas of Delaware, New Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania.
A weakened Ernesto is expected to restrengthen later to a hurricane again as it heads northeast into Atlantic waters.
Ernesto battered Bermuda as a hurricane
Ernesto made landfall in the tiny North Atlantic Island of Bermuda early Saturday morning as a Category 1 hurricane, knocking out power to thousands and dropping several inches of rain as residents hunkered down.
After slowly moving out away from the island, it was downgraded to a tropical storm.
Belco, Bermuda's utility provider, reported midday Sunday that more than 12,200 customers were without power, about 34% of the island. The storm also downed trees across the tiny and wealthy island.
Bermuda Security Minister Michael Weeks said Sunday morning that businesses were beginning to open in the tiny British territory after the storm passed and "we are on our way back to living a life of normalcy." There were no reports of major infrastructure damage, said Lyndon Raynor of Bermuda's Disaster Risk Reduction Mitigation Team.
Just hours before Ernesto's landfall, generators, flashlights and generators were being snapped off shelves at one hardware store, while Bermuda's largest grocery store was packed with people preparing for the worst.
"The best thing to do is obviously get your supplies beforehand," shopper and Bermuda resident Lorenzo Cooke told CBS Ness.
Cooke said that in any hurricane, the best resource is often Bermudians themselves.
"Obviously, a neighbor is a helping hand at all times," Cooke said.
Captain Jeremy Fowler secured the Pescador, an 80-foot sport fishing boat in a protected area of Bermuda's harbor. He lost an engine but is riding out the storm with his friend Brian Alford.
"Feeling pretty confident, but still optimistic," Fowler said. "Paying attention to what's going on. It's blowing the tops off the waves in the harbor here. I see some of the seawalls starting to get pretty deep."
A rush of people had been trying to leave Bermuda. Michael Vanderbilt of Arlington, Virginia, who cut his trip to Bermuda short, was among the travelers waiting in long lines at L.F. Wade International Airport on Thursday.
"I was here for a week of vacation, and I'm just taking the opportunity to leave a little early so I don't get caught up in the aftermath of the storm," Vanderbilt told CBS News.
The storm's categorization is based on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale, which only accounts for wind speed and not the tropical cyclone's size, which the National Hurricane Center said is "large." It also doesn't account for the amount of precipitation the storm system holds or its moving speed, both of which can be disastrous. Slow-moving tropical cyclones can increase the amount of rain, storm surge and flooding a region experiences.
Ernesto's path and origin
Ernesto already caused potentially life-threatening conditions in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands earlier this week. It passed north of the region as a tropical storm that still managed to knock out power to hundreds of thousands of residents. At one point, 23 hospitals were operating on generators. Schools and numerous roads were also closed.
A spokesperson for Puerto Rico's electricity provider, LUMA Energy, told CBS News that at the outage's peak, 750,000 customers were without power.
Residents in Puerto Rico were still coping with the damage Thursday. In Fajardo, a town on the northeast corner of the island, debris piles from damaged businesses were growing.
The U.S. Virgin Islands had about 46,000 out of power at one point on Wednesday — nearly all customers. As of Saturday morning, that number was down to about 7,000, according to PowerOutage.us.
Ernesto developed just days after Debby finished its move along the U.S. East Coast, where it left at least eight people dead, including children, as a Category 1 hurricane-turned-tropical storm.
Rivers across Puerto Rico were swollen after nearly 10 inches of rain.
Officials were forced to open floodgates at a dam along the La Plata River. Sirens warned residents in the nearby municipality of Toa Baja to evacuate their homes in case of flooding.
Puerto Rico's power grid was wiped out in 2017 by Hurricane Maria, which slammed the island as a strong Category 4 storm.
"The government today is much better prepared," said Juan Saca, president and CEO of LUMA Energy. "… We have a plan that you can go into our website and take a look at the plan."
President Biden approved an emergency declaration for Puerto Rico, the White House said Tuesday night, authorizing FEMA to help with storm recovery.
Ernesto is the fifth named storm so far of the Atlantic hurricane season, which has already proven to be historic after Beryl reached record strength at the beginning of the season in above-average temperatures of the Gulf of Mexico.
NOAA has predicted an above-normal season, with 17-25 named storms, eight to 13 hurricanes, and four to seven major hurricanes.
The fifth-named storm typically doesn't form until Aug. 22, according to NOAA.
Editor's Note: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story reported 975,000 customers had lost power in Puerto Rico, but that was the number of customers who still had power, according to Puerto Rico's electricity provider.
