Rain and 'hurricane force' winds lead to coastal flooding, power outages, road closures across region

A winter rainstorm caused flooding, strong winds and power outages along the Seacoast Monday.

John Cannon, a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, said that while four to eight inches of snow is being recorded inland in some northern Strafford County municipalities, much of the Seacoast saw rainfall and powerful winds.

Dubbed "Winter Storm Izzy" by The Weather Channel, Monday's strong winds, precipitation and flooding were the last of the storm's effects since it first made landfall over the holiday weekend, which brought heavy snow and ice to parts of the eastern United States.

“Our storm is ongoing, it’s on track. We’re still getting heavy snow inland and rain along the coast,” Cannon said Monday. “The big news late this morning is very strong winds continue along the coast and we’re getting significant splash over and coastal flooding along the Seacoast of New Hampshire.”

'Hurricane force' gusts of wind

Cannon said Hampton Beach webcams showed a foot of roadway flooding and high splashover and other seaside areas like Portsmouth would likely experience flooding before the afternoon.

Amid temperatures in the mid-40-degree range, wind gusts across the Seacoast topped out at 50 miles per hour, though Cannon said gusts over the ocean were recorded at 66 knots, which converts to nearly 76 miles per hour.

“That’s pretty strong,” he said. “That’s hurricane force.”

Rye police announced mid-afternoon Monday that all vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian traffic on Ocean Boulevard at the Rye and North Hampton town line was being detoured.

“This is due to the road being compromised and the pavement could collapse,” police wrote in a press release.

In addition to asking members of the public to avoid Route 1A if possible, Rye police said the roadway around 100 Harbor Road was closed off because a portion of it had collapsed.

Mark Cotreau, chief of the Rye Fire Department, said earlier Monday that Ocean Boulevard, a scenic roadway along Route 1A, was closed down due to high splashover and rocks in the roadway.

“In a pretty short time over the next several hours, by mid-afternoon the winds will be less,” Cannon said. “Much of the snow will be over. At that point, any accumulated snow will be limited to the northern mountains, so it will wind down fairly quickly.”

Thousands without power in Seacoast and southern Maine

As of 11:25 a.m. on Monday, a total of 2,087 Hampton Unitil customers, almost one in five, were reporting power outages. An assessment of the outages on Unitil’s website stated power could return between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Monday.

An update from Unitil just after 12:30 p.m. stated that, at its peak, around 2,800 New Hampshire Seacoast customers lost their power, but that it had been fully restored for all but under 100 customers.

“Our crews have worked throughout the morning to assess the damage while working closely with first responders to address any safety concerns," said Unitil spokesperson Alec O'Meara. "The storm appears to have evolved as expected with snow changing to rain fairly quickly in coastal areas. The focus will remain on the wind gusts through the afternoon and the potential for additional outages, although it appears that the most hazardous conditions have passed."

An Eversource online power outage map shows a number of ongoing outages across the region. Downed tree limbs in Greenland around 9 a.m. caused roughly 350 customers to lose power, as well as sporadic outages in Portsmouth and Rye impacting roughly 40 households.

As of 11:30 a.m., between the neighboring communities, some power had been restored but roughly 60 customers were still without electricity, with more than two-thirds of them located in downtown Portsmouth. Eversource reported it anticipated power, which was lost due to equipment damage, wouldn't return in that area until around 6 p.m. Monday.

Portsmouth Fire Department Chief Todd Germain said he was not aware of any storm-related calls made to the department Monday morning.

In York County, Maine, more than 5,700 customers of Central Maine Power had lost power, as of 11:30 a.m. Monday, including more than half of CMP customers in Eliot and more than one-third in Kittery. By 1 p.m., that countywide figure had decreased to just under 4,000 customers without power.

Between the two southern Maine towns, as of 1 p.m., a total of 3,460 customers were without power.

Police departments in Ogunquit and Wells, which CMP reported had a combined 25 customers without power as of 1 p.m., shared videos of the strong seas crashing against the shore and floods streaming into pedestrian and vehicle areas.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Seacoast: Rain and strong winds lead to coastal flooding, power outages