One day after Tropical Storm Isaias swept through the New York region, snapping trees and branches, utility crews were struggling to restore power to nearly 2.5 million customers as officials acknowledged that some outages could linger for days.
On Wednesday morning, the most widespread outages were reported in northern New Jersey, suburbs just north of New York City and much of the entire state of Connecticut.
The scale of the damage was extensive: Con Edison reported that the outage in its service area in New York City and Westchester County was second only to Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
“We’ve had over 16,000 service requests for downed trees, which I think is the most we’ve ever had in the city,” Deanne Criswell, the city’s emergency management commissioner, said in an interview on Wednesday with the television station WPIX.
In some places the storm tore through outdoor dining areas that restaurants had only recently set up to take advantage of rules allowing them to serve guests outside, dealing owners yet another blow.
In New Jersey, outages at hospitals were complicating state officials’ efforts to compile reports on coronavirus hospitalizations and deaths.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York lashed out at the utilities, including Con Edison, accusing them of not adequately preparing for Isaias and saying the state would investigate “how such a failure could have taken place.”
This is not the first time Mr. Cuomo has criticized utilities over power outages following storms.
“The fact that many customers still do not know when their power will be restored makes it even more unacceptable,” Mr. Cuomo said. “The worst of this situation was avoidable, and it cannot happen again.”
Con Edison did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey said at a news conference on Wednesday morning that while many people should expect to have their power restored on Wednesday, some outages could continue for longer.
Joe Fiordaliso, president of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, said that about 2,000 out-of-state crews have arrived to help with utility repairs, he said.
“Our hope is by late Friday night, 80 percent of customers will have been restored,” Mr. Fiordaliso said.
Some people may not have power until the end of the weekend, Mr. Fiordaliso said.
Mr. Murphy said earlier on Wednesday morning that the damage could have been worse if the storm had not moved so quickly through the area. “Like a knife through hot butter,’’ he told a local radio station.
By Wednesday morning, the immediate threat of strong winds and heavy rains had passed, as the storm had crossed into Canada and was expected to dissipate on Thursday.
But reports of damage could be found all along the path that Isaias took up the East Coast on Tuesday after making landfall in North Carolina. The storm left a trail of flood and fires, with some of its most devastating effects caused by a series of tornadoes that it spawned in several states — a scene that many officials said was another layer of pain for communities already struggling with the coronavirus.
Nick Conforti, an owner of The Brook Taphouse in West Caldwell, N.J., said his restaurant was shut down for more than three months because of the pandemic. But when the state allowed outdoor dining to resume, he invested about $13,000 in a new outdoor area, including new tents, chairs, tables, a sound system and bar shelving. About five weeks ago, the taphouse reopened.
On Tuesday, however, the entire area — including phones, computers and tents — was wrecked by Isaias, and Mr. Conforti did not know if he could continue operating.
“The storm destroyed everything,” he said. “I’m almost ready to close down over here.”
Two people who were killed when a tornado struck a neighborhood in northeast North Carolina. A woman died in St. Mary’s County, Md., when a tree toppled by the winds landed on her vehicle.
In New York City, a 60-year-old man who was sitting on the passenger side of a car in Briarwood, Queens, was killed on Tuesday when a tree fell on the vehicle and a 49-year-old woman was critically injured when she was struck by a falling tree branch in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, the police said.
On Wednesday morning, residents emerged from their homes to find toppled trees, downed power lines and broken branches littering the streets and crushing vehicles. Many streets were still blocked off to vehicles by trees.
Some rail service was still suspended as workers cleared tracks of trees and other debris and repair signals, according to the Long Island Rail Road.
Around noon at a Target store in Mount Kisco, N.Y., Diliam Galvan was shopping with her two sons to get bottled water and food that would not spoil in the heat. The family had been without power for almost a day, and she was not sure if the chicken, beef, milk and eggs stuffed in her refrigerator would last.
Her sons — Dennis, 10, and Henderson Portillo, 6 — have been largely stuck at home since school closed in March.
“It’s been so boring,” Dennis said. “And now we don’t even have electricity.”
His mother shrugged.
“Who knows if they will go back to school soon?” she said. “We don’t even know when we will get power back.”
Scott G. Morgan, the administrator and emergency management coordinator for Upper Township, N.J., a seaside community near the southern tip of the state, said the authorities were surveying damage caused by a tornado that touched down Tuesday morning.
The property damage was extensive, he said, but there were no reports of injuries and only one family was displaced.
“It could have been significantly worse,” Mr. Morgan said in an interview as he used a drone to survey the damage. “We’re not used to tornadoes in this area.”
The tornado came in off the Atlantic Ocean near Strathmere, N.J., but did not immediately make landfall. It left a corridor of downed trees and vegetation on either side of the Garden State Parkway, which the tornado had crossed over.
“You can see a definite cut right through the woods on either side,” he said.
Mr. Morgan had already spent months dealing with another crisis: the coronavirus pandemic. He offered a grim chuckle when asked what it was like to be handling the clean up from a tornado, which he said was rare for that area of South Jersey.
“It’s like I wish 2020 would not have even shown its face,” Mr. Morgan said. “It’s just been one hellacious year — for all of us.”
In Brewster, about 60 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, the stoplights on State Route 22 remained out Wednesday morning. Drivers inched their way into busy intersections and waited for considerate drivers to allow them through.
Greg Semmeles, the owner of Brewster Wine and Liquor, stood outside his shop watching the traffic navigating the intersections.
“I’m surprised I’m still out of power,” he said. “Usually they get businesses up and running first, and the lights on 22 still being out, that’s not a good sign.”
Mr. Semmeles, who lives in New Fairfield, Conn., said he was lucky. His liquor store was considered essential and allowed to remain open during the worst of the pandemic in New York. Even now, the power loss was mostly an inconvenience.
“Most of my stuff isn’t perishable, except for the ice,” he said. “And I can still take cash.”
The power outages meant pumps at gas stations in Brewster were not working. One gas station limited customers to three gallons and accepted only cash.
Paul Bryson, 63, said he went out early on Wednesday to get gas for his pickup truck at the few places it was available.
“I’m sure they are out of gas by now,” he said.
He planned to return in the evening to get gas for his generator.
“The last time I remember going through this was Superstorm Sandy,” Bryson said. “This is crazy. It’s not bad enough we have the coronavirus and now we are hit with this.”
Curt Potter, 51, a creative director for an advertising agency, said trees fell on a boat and a 1970 pickup truck at his home in Huntington Station on Long Island.
Each side of the garage was hit by a different tree, but the boat, a 1966 Pearson Triton, took the brunt of the damage, Mr. Potter said.
He and his wife surveyed the damage on Wednesday as crews worked to remove the fallen trees from the boat.
“It was all just totally wind damage,” he said. “It was just so swift and violent.”
Chief Paul J. Rickard of the Mount Hope Police Department in Orange County, N.Y., said in a video on Wednesday morning that the county’s 9-1-1 emergency line had still not been restored after being knocked out by the storm.
“We still have a great number of people in town without phone and electrical service,” Chief Rickard said.
Lauren Hard, Juliana Kim, Lucy Tompkins, Tracey Tully and Debra West contributed reporting.
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