Hermine spins away from East Coast, batters shore with waves

Storm system Hermine spun away from the U.S. East Coast on Sunday, removing the threat of heavy rain but maintaining enough power to keep beaches at risk for unsafe waves and currents – and off-limits to disappointed swimmers and surfers during the holiday weekend.

At 11 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Hermine’s center was about 325 miles (523 km) southeast of Long Island, the eastern tip of NY, the hurricane center said.

The storm is generating heavy rains, strong winds, and powerful waves from the Mid-Atlantic region to southern New England, which pose the greatest danger to coastal cities and beaches.

Rain won’t be much of a problem, because the heaviest rainfall will remain offshore.

“It was a little overhyped by the media”, said Andrew Thulin, assistant general manager of Daddy O Hotel Restaurant in the New Jersey township of Long Beach.

The National Hurricane Center said waves as high as 10 to 14 feet were possible.

But for the Merrimack Valley, the storm is likely to cause wind gusts of just 25-30 miles per hour in coming days, and up to a 40 percent chance of rain, which would be beneficial due to recent drought conditions, according to Field. The storm system is still expected to keep swimmers and surfers out of beach waters because of its unsafe waves and rip currents, and storm surge and beach erosion remain concerns.

As of 5 a.m. Monday, the center of Hermine was located far off the coast of Maryland, about 360 miles south and east of Atlantic City and was drifting north at only 3 mph.

Emily Birknes said she saw a couple of submerged cars and some people kayaked through the streets. High tide in North Wildwood is expected at about 10:30am with flooding taking about an hour longer to occur.

A medical examiner’s office has yet to determine whether the storm was the cause, Florida Gov. Rick Scott said.

The storm doused Labor Day weekend plans for countless residents along the Eastern Seaboard.

It has since been downgraded to a tropical storm and then a post-tropical storm as it moved up the east coast.

Todd Solomon, who lives in an area of Virginia Beach that often floods, said water crept up to the foundations of some homes.

Hermine rose up over the Gulf of Mexico and hit Florida on Friday as a Category 1 hurricane before weakening to a tropical storm across Georgia. But he said he did not know of any buildings that were actually flooded.

Richard Jewett, 68, was rescued from his home in New Port Richey, just north of Tampa, as emergency teams carried out a mandatory evacuation.

Michael Mann at Pennsylvania State University noted that this century’s 1-foot sea-level rise in New York City meant 25 more square miles flooded during Superstorm Sandy, causing billions in additional damage.

On Friday the storm passed near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, leaving some 51,000 power outages across the state, said state emergency management spokesman Derrec Becker.

And on Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks, a small tornado spawned by Hermine knocked over two trailers and injured four people, authorities said.

Hermine has been linked to at least two deaths – a man sleeping in a tent in Ocala who died after a tree fell on him and the death of a truck driver whose vehicle overturned due to high winds in eastern North Carolina. Almost 40,000 homes were in the dark Sunday and power crews say it could be the middle of the week before most power is back on.

A handful of people came out to the beach near the famous Steel Pier amusement park, mostly to look at the rough seas.