A severe storm packing hurricane-force wind gusts and soaking rain swept through the Northeast early Monday, knocking out power for nearly 1.5 million homes and businesses and forcing hundreds of schools to close in New England.
Falling trees knocked down power lines across the region, and some utility companies warned customers that power could be out for days. Trees also fell onto homes and vehicles, but no serious injuries were reported.
New England got the brunt of the storm, which brought sustained winds of up to 50 mph in spots. A gust of 130 mph was reported at the Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire, while winds hit 82 mph in Mashpee on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
The storm left 450,000 New Hampshire electricity customers without power at its peak and produced wind gusts of 78 mph, emergency officials said. Emergency Management Director Perry Plummer said the outage was the state's fourth largest.