Tropical Storm Iasias charged up the East Coast on Tuesday, spinning off tornadoes, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands, and damaging or destroying homes from the Carolinas to Pennsylvania, New York and New England.
Iasias stormed ashore as a Category 1 hurricane late Monday night near Ocean Isle, at the southern tip of North Carolina, just north of Myrtle Beach SC, and quickly moved inland.
At least four people were killed and others were missing by Tuesday afternoon.
Iasias didn’t remain a hurricane for long, and storm-surge flooding along the eastern seaboard was relatively moderate.
The storm’s biggest threats were tornadoes, along with lightning, 70 mph winds and torrential rain. Moving rapidly northward, it left a trail of floods, fires and destroyed homes, reported the New York Times.
There was significant flooding in Philadelphia and New York City. Tropical storm warnings were posted as far north as Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.
The first death occurred at a North Carolina mobile home park, “where structures were torn apart and cars blown on top of each other, and there were several people still missing on Tuesday afternoon,” reported The Guardian.
A twister caused by the storm later killed at least two people in Bertie County, in east-central North Carolina, the Times said, and the New York Daily News said a person was killed by a falling tree in the borough of Queens.
