High Tidal Surges Bring Floods to the Mid-Atlantic Region

Coastal communities successful the Mid-Atlantic states remained nether flood warnings oregon advisories connected Saturday arsenic they surveyed the harm from the large, slow-moving tempest that doused areas of the portion and brought immoderate of the highest tidal surges of the past 2 decades, according to meteorologists.

The tempest and flooding affected cities and towns on bluish coastal Virginia up done the Chesapeake and Delaware Bay areas, to coastal New Jersey. Waters surged into the cities of Annapolis, Md., and Alexandria, Va., and waterways surrounding the cities of Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia swelled.

Up and down the occidental enactment of the Chesapeake Bay, homes and businesses flooded and coastal roads were submerged, turning immoderate coastal areas into islands. But the surges were not arsenic damaging arsenic immoderate forecasters had feared. In Baltimore, the Inner Harbor was nether h2o connected Friday night, but by Saturday, radical successful the country were backmost retired walking their dogs and sitting connected benches.

“We got precise adjacent to having immoderate much important issues,” James Wallace, manager of the Baltimore City Office of Emergency Management, said, adding that the effects of the flooding were little terrible than feared acknowledgment to upwind speeds dying down astir precocious tide.

Flooding could proceed done Sunday into Monday greeting successful immoderate areas, said Kevin Witt, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. As of Saturday afternoon, determination were nary reports of storm-related fatalities.

In downtown Annapolis, residents sloshed done a mates feet of h2o connected Saturday morning. The h2o had receded overnight, from a highest of conscionable beneath 5 feet, according to David Mandell, lawman manager of the Office of Emergency Management.

Maryland’s superior city, which lies connected the Chesapeake Bay, confronts regular tidal surge flooding, which prompted the metropolis to make a pumping strategy to forestall high-tide flooding. But it was nary lucifer for Friday night’s surge.

“We’re utilized to flooding, and this is benignant of flooding beyond that,” Mr. Mandell said.

Around midnight connected Friday, Mayor Gavin Buckley of Annapolis paddled on downtown’s Dock Street connected a kayak, surveying the harm to restaurants and stores. Floodwaters had overflowed sandbags astatine the doorways to galore businesses, causing “extensive” harm that Mr. Buckley disquieted would person an economical toll.

“We’re lone conscionable recovering from Covid, truthful a batch of those concern are lone conscionable getting backmost connected their feet,” Mr. Buckley said.

The surge fell acold beneath the record-setting Hurricane Isabel successful 2003, which inundated the metropolis with implicit 7 feet of tempest surge. But it’s the highest level of flooding the metropolis has experienced that didn’t stem from a hurricane, Mr. Mandell said.

The storm’s severity was caused by a confluence of the precocious tides, the upwind and the rain. “The full magnitude of each of those factors made it benignant of unusual,” Mr. Witt said. Coastal flood records were breached on the shores of the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay successful Solomons Island and Straits Point successful Maryland, and Dahlgren, Va.

High tides besides caused h2o levels on the Delaware River and precocious Delaware Bay to attack immoderate of their highest points connected record. High winds on parts of the Atlantic seashore peaked astatine astir 60 miles per hour, according to Alex Staarmann, a meteorologist astatine the National Weather Service, bringing down immoderate trees and powerfulness lines. In New Jersey, astir 4,000 households remained without powerfulness connected Saturday.

Mr. Witt said the tempest was portion of a signifier of stronger storms affecting wider areas that were driven by clime change.

From 2000 to 2015, the incidence of high-tide flooding successful the Mid-Atlantic doubled to an mean of six days per twelvemonth from 3 days, according to a 2018 report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“We are connected the beforehand lines of clime change,” Mr. Mandell said of Annapolis. “We spot it routinely.”

JoAnna Daemmrich contributed reporting from Annapolis, and Maria Morales from Baltimore.