David Sharp, Robert F. Butaky and Patrick Whittle – The Associated Press

Post-tropical cyclone Lee made landfall this Saturday in eastern Canada, near the border of the state of Maine and the Canadian region of Nova Scotia, with winds up to 70 miles per hour (110 kilometers per hour). reported the National Hurricane Centerwhich warned of torrential rains that could affect millions of people and flooding in coastal areas due to high waves.

Maine and Massachusetts declared a state of emergency on Friday due to the cyclone, which could also affect the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; Massachusetts canceled the alert on Saturday. Before his arrival, there was already tens of thousands of homes and businesses without power in Maine and Nova Scotia, and hundreds of flights were delayed or canceled at airports in Boston, Massachusetts, and Halifax, Nova Scotia.

[El “amplio y peligroso” huracán Lee se acerca a la costa noreste]

The National Hurricane Center downgraded Lee early Saturday from a hurricane to a post-tropical cyclone, but it is carrying winds of up to 70 miles per hour (110 kilometers per hour). A Category 1 hurricane brings winds of 74 to 95 miles per hour. The center of the storm was at 4 p.m. (Eastern Time), 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Eastport, Maine, and about 135 miles (215 kilometers) west of ‘Halifax, Nova Scotia; and was moving rapidly north at 22 miles per hour (35 km/h).

There were hurricane watches in Brunswick and Nova Scotia, as well as tropical storm warnings from Westport, Massachusetts, to Nova Scotia. In Massachusetts and Maine, the most forested states in the country, the land was already saturated by heavy summer rains and tree roots have weakened, which could worsen the consequences of the storm.

“There’s still a lot left, but we’ve already seen downed trees and power outages,” meteorologist Todd Foisy of the National Weather Service told the Associated Press news agency.

Foisy predicts wind gusts of up to 70 miles per hour (113 kilometers per hour) on Maine’s eastern coast, and up to 50 miles per hour (80 kilometers per hour) in a 400-mile-wide swath at from Moosehead Lake, Maine, to the ocean.

Cruise ships plying the hurricane-hit area docked in Portland, Maine, and lobster boats in Bar Harbor and elsewhere on the coast pulled their traps from the water and dragged their boats inland , leaving some bays looking like ghost towns since Friday.

Lee has already hit the US Virgin Islands, the Bahamas and Bermuda before turning north. Its storm surge can create potentially deadly waves and currents on the East Coast, according to the National Hurricane Center.

In some areas of Maine, waves can exceed 15 feet in height, causing coastal damage, and winds can cause power outages, according to Louise Fode of the National Weather Service. Up to five inches (12 centimeters) of rain are expected in eastern Maine and a flash flood warning is in effect.

However, although they were prepared, many in Maine did not seem to worry about the hurricane, having become accustomed to the passage of other winter storms: this one would be the same, they said, but without snow.

On Long Island, lobsterman Steve Train finished removing his 200 traps from the water on Friday and is now waiting out the storm in Casco Bay, Maine, “without the slightest worry.”

Ian Hubbard, a meteorologist at the Canadian Hurricane Center, said Lee would not be as resilient as the remnants of Hurricane Fiona, which a year ago swept away homes (and a woman) in the ocean and toppled utility poles in Nova Scotia. New Brunswick. But it will still be a dangerous storm.

Kyle Leavitt, director of the New Brunswick Emergency Management Organization, asked everyone to stay home: “Nothing good can come out to see the size of the waves and how strong the wind really is.” »

Destructive hurricanes rarely reach this far north. The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 had wind gusts of up to 186 miles per hour (300 kilometers per hour) and sustained winds of 121 miles per hour (195 kilometers per hour) at the Observatory in Blue Hill in Massachusetts. However, such powerful storms have not been recorded in recent years.

But the region learned the hard way in 2011, with Hurricane Irene, that not all the damage occurs on the coast. Already downgraded to a tropical storm, it generated losses estimated at $800 million as it passed through Vermont.