Tropical Storm Henri made landfall in Rhode Island Sunday afternoon walloping the region with severe winds that caused power outages and heavy rain that resulted in flash flooding from New Jersey to Massachusetts,

The storm had been downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm that still generated winds of up to 70 mph. Although there was not much initial damage, weather watchers predicted damage due to flooding in remote areas inland during the next few days.

Millions of residents on Long Island and in southern New England anticipated a heavy dose of flooding, toppled trees, and extended power outages.

The beach towns of southern Rhode Island were ravaged with major downpours of rain that left coastal roads nearly impassable.

As the storm approached the area, authorities in Providence, Rhode Island and New Bedford, Massachusetts, closed giant hurricane barriers built in the 1960s after devastating storms in 1938 and 1954.

Massachusetts’ Steamship Authority stopped ferry service on Sunday between the mainland and popular vacation sites of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket and the U.S. Coast Guard shuttered ports on Cape Cod and New Bedford.

Thunderstorms pummeled the area prior to landfall with up to half a foot of rain late Saturday and flash floods started to occur overnight on Saturday. Drivers in New York City, and in Newark, and Hoboken, New Jersey were forced to drive through roadways of a foot-deep of water.

New York City experienced the heaviest one-hour deluge on record. Starting at 10:00 and ending at 11:00 p.m. Saturday, 1.94 inches of rain pummeled Central Park. More than 4-inches of rain fell in total on Saturday, the most in a calendar day since 2014 and the fifth most for any August day on record. More than half a foot of rain fell in Brooklyn, resulting in a number of floods.

The major airports in the region remained open as the storm bared down, but hundreds of flights on Sunday were canceled. Service of some of New York City’s commuter rail system was interrupted through Sunday as were Amtrak train service between New York and Boston.

Most of the damage caused by Super Storm Sandy in 2012 has been repaired, but projects planned to guard against future storms have not been completed.

More than 71,000 electric customers were without power in Rhode Island as of nearly noon on Sunday, according to Poweroutage.us. More than 12,000 customers were without power in Connecticut and more than 5,000 customers were suffering outages in Massachusetts, according to Poweroutages.us.

There was numerous flash flood warning in central and northern New Jersey after a torrent rainfall caused by Henri on Saturday night into Sunday morning.

Areas just east of Princeton and northeast of Trenton were hit hardest with as much as 4 to 8-inches of range. Isolated totals topped 9-inches.

A big concern for authorities as Henri approached the New England-New York region was that the area has multiple numbers of nuclear power planted.

Meanwhile, at least 22 people died as a result of rainstorms and flooding that hit Tennessee on Sunday. Record breaking rainfall caused flash floods through Middle Tennessee. Flooding took out roads, damaged cellphone towers and destroyed telephone lines.

Up to 17 inches of rain fell in Humphreys County Tennessee in less than 24 yours on Saturday. The activity shattered a Tennessee record for one-day rainfall by more than 3-inches, according to the National Weather Service. Lines of storms moved over the region for hours, dumping a record amount of rain.

The severe rainfall turned the creeks that flow in backyards and through downtown Waverly into torrent rapids. The flooding was gone by Sunday, but in its wake was debris that included wrecked cars, demolished businesses and homes and more.

McEwen, Tennessee was pounded with more than 17-inches of rain on Saturday, breaking the state’s record of 24-hours of precipitation. The record was 13.6-inches set in 1982.

Much of the south was without power on Monday, August 23th due to Tropical Storm Fred.

Most power outages as of Monday, August 23, 2021 at 10:27 a.m., according to poweroutages.us.

• Rhode Island 42,360
• Connecticut 8,622
• New Jersey 4,487
• Pennsylvania 4,117
• Texas 3,818
• Florida 3,359
• New York 2,938
• Louisiana 2,226
• North Carolina 2,185
• Maine 1,247

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For full forecast visit https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/