Storm Leaves Northeast; Damage Remains

Updated at 6:58 p.m. ET

The powerful nor'easter had moved out at sea, but flooding lingered Tuesday in many Northeast communities.

Many places were still inundated with water, with tens of thousands of people lacking electricity and hundreds still in emergency shelters - some for a fourth day.

Across New England, the storm closed roads and forced hundreds of residents to evacuate their homes after eight to 10 inches of precipitation fell - one of the heaviest rainfalls for the region in the past five years, CBS Station WBZ reports.

Ferocious storm pummels Northeast

In Wayne, a flood-prone New York City suburb along the Passaic River, Abedin Shakiri was told by a utility worker that he probably wouldn't be able to enter his house until Saturday. The 48-year-old Albanian came to the United States from Kosovo in 2000 as part of a refugee airlift, and bought virtually the first house he set eyes on - near the river.

"It's a cheap area here," he said. "It's nice, when there's no water."

He did not know the neighborhood was prone to flooding when he bought. Of the previous owner, Shakiri said, "I didn't ask; he didn't tell me."

Marie Philpot and her husband, Phil Weckesser of Woodland Park have had it with floods, saying this one - the worst they remembered in 14 years living along the banks of the Passaic River - would be their last.

"It's very depressing," Philpot said. "All you do is work, work, work to build something, and it's all destroyed. I work just to pay insurance for this, and it's paying us nothing."

One neighbor teased Philpot about her homemade hip waders: two black garbage bags she had stuffed in each of her rubber boots to protect her pant legs as she waded down the street to her home. Philpot said they were ready, but unable, to pump out their home because they had no electricity.

About 39,000 New Jersey customers remained without power as of late afternoon Tuesday. In Connecticut, nearly 41,000 homes and businesses were in the dark, down from a peak of more than 85,000, and nearly 93,000 were without power in New York City and its suburbs to the north and the east.

Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell called for an investigation into what she called the slow response of utility companies. She asked state utility regulators and emergency management officials to look into complaints that Connecticut Light & Power Co. and The United Illuminating Co. were slow to make fixes.

Spokesmen for both companies say their crews responded aggressively.

The Aberjona River near the Boston suburb of Winchester had crested and was starting to recede Tuesday, but several hundred homes remained flooded.

The rain gouged a gaping hole under some trolley tracks in Newton, forcing the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to substitute buses for Boston-bound commuters. Officials said it could take several days to repair the damage.

In southeastern New Hampshire, more than 100 roads remained closed by flooding. About 100 homes were evacuated in Somersworth, Allenstown and Exeter.

A dam that had been threatened Monday in West Warwick, R.I., held, and floodwaters were receding Tuesday. In Atlantic City, many of the 400 residents who had to leave their oceanfront homes during the storm were told they could return home Tuesday afternoon.

The storm caused moderate erosion to New Jersey's 127-mile coastline, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

At least 11 people died in storm-related accidents, and nearly a half-million people lost power at the peak of the storm. Governors from New Jersey to New Hampshire were seeking federal assistance to help defray cleanup costs.

New Jersey's Public Service Electric & Gas said the weekend storm was the worst in its history, causing outages to more than 420,000 customers. At the peak, the number of outages for Consolidated Edison, which powers New York City and some northern suburbs, was the worst since Hurricane Gloria in 1985, spokesman Chris Olert said.

The rain forced the closure of some shellfishing beds in Rhode Island. And Cincinnati was preparing for minor flooding from the Ohio River, which is swollen from heavy rain and melting snow.

The storm, packing near-hurricane-force winds and heavy rain, toppled trees throughout the Northeast from Saturday through Monday.

CBS News reporter Manny Gallegus says close to 3,500 trees came down in Connecticut, and more than 1,000 toppled in New York City.

"When the trees come down, we all know what happens to electricity and to the telephone lines," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

Among the trees that came down was one that survived the Sept. 11 attacks and was moved to a nursery at a Bronx park, according to city parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. The pear tree was pulled out of the ground and pushed over in the storm. Benepe said he expected the tree to be saved.

In the Highlands section of White Plains, The O'Sullivan Brothers landscaping firm was dealing with side-by-side 50-foot oaks that fell into side-by side homes.

One house, which was vacant when the tree fell Saturday night, had a deep cleft in the roof and undoubtedly significant water damaged inside. The other had a smaller scar in the roof and had its whitewashed stone chimney knocked away by the tree.

Shawn Kovach and her two children watched the work Monday from the front yard across the street as the tree cutters managed to take down 20-foot boughs without further damaging the homes. Kovach said she was looking at the damage from the first tree when she heard the snapping of tree roots as the second oak went down.

"It was very traumatic to see that happen," she said. "Thank goodness no one was home. That's the little girl's bedroom, where it hit."

Regina Janicki, a cosmetologist who works at home in North White Plains, had been without power since Saturday, and was especially frustrated because she also lost power for 48 hours in a snowstorm last month.

"I have to keep going out to my car to recharge my phone and my DVD player," she said. "I spent $150 on candles. My husband went to work in an un-ironed shirt."

In low-lying Bound Brook, N.J., site of several major floods in the past decade, Mayor Carey Pilato credited a $100 million flood control project, begun after the remnants of Hurricane Floyd caused major flooding in 1999, with sparing a six-block area of the town that had been hit hard then and during a nor'easter in 2007.

Mark Wilson, director of a soccer academy that sits in the middle of Bound Brook's hardest-hit area, said the first-floor carpets were damaged and the basement was filled with water. Still, he said, this round of flooding paled in comparison with 2007, when his company was in the middle of renovating.

"We had 4 feet of water throughout the whole building, and under that was a half-inch of river silt," he said. "There was a certain degree of faith that it wasn't going to happen again, and here we are three years later. But it's definitely a big improvement."

Among the storm-related deaths:

• A New Jersey woman was killed and three others were injured in Westport, Conn., after a tree fell on a car Saturday night during the storm, police said. Another woman died when a tree struck her as she was walking in Greenwich, Conn., they said.

• In the suburb of Teaneck, N.J., two neighbors were killed by a falling tree as they headed home from a prayer service at a synagogue. In Hartsdale, N.Y., another suburb, a man was killed when a large tree crushed the roof of his car and entangled it in live wires.

• A 73-year-old woman was killed by a falling tree while walking to her car in Bay Shore, N.Y. Three people tried to save the Brooklyn woman.

• In New Hampshire, a large pine tree fell on a car traveling on Interstate 93 on Sunday afternoon, killing a man and injuring his wife and child, state police said.

• In Lyme, Conn., a 75-year-old man drowned accidentally Sunday afternoon in a pond behind his home. And in Rhode Island, an off-duty state trooper died early Sunday after his car hydroplaned in standing water left from the storm, state police said.