Earl socks Canadas Nova Scotia, weakens to tropical storm

9/04/2010 01:30:21 PM

MONTREAL – A resilient Earl barreled ashore in Nova Scotia as a hurricane on Saturday, Canadian experts said, marking the last gasp of a monster storm that menaced the US East Coast but ultimately failed to do much damage there.

The center of the storm made landfall in southern Nova Scotia shortly after 11:00 am , buffeting the craggy coastline with winds up to 120 kilometers per hour, according to the Canadian Hurricane Centre .

It then weakened to a tropical storm over land, but pounded communities like Halifax with high winds and rain that left at least 160,000 households without power, Nova Scotia Power said.

The weather system had lost some steam as it roared up the eastern seaboard overnight, dropping to tropical storm strength, but Earl appeared to hang tough in the hours before making landfall, and the storm was still packing a punch.

CHC meteorologist John Parker told AFP that "Earl is still a hurricane" as it made landfall, although the centre later stressed that the storm had hovered between hurricane and tropical storm strength.

There was "conflicting information as to whether Earl was a strong tropical storm or a hurricane at landfall," CHC said.

Earl was lashing Halifax, the region's largest city, home to some 300,000 people, with winds of up to 111 kilometers per hour.

Parker said wind speeds of up to 120 kilometers per hour were registered as the storm made landfall. Winds of 119 kilometers per hour are hurricane strength.

Greater Moncton International Airport canceled all flights Saturday, and Halifax Stanfield International Airport was under partial operation.

Earl weakened Friday after powering toward the US coast, but it still lashed several hundred kilometers of seaboard with heavy rains and strong winds, disrupting holiday plans for millions and prompting evacuations in North Carolina.

It had also prompted hurricane warnings in the northeastern US state of Massachusetts, notably its vacation destinations including Cape Cod and the tony islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, and while residents battened down the hatches, the storm dealt the region only a glancing blow.

"We had a lot of hype but no action, which was good," the wife of a former attendant at the historic Chatham Lighthouse on Cape Cod told AFP.

"It's over. There's blue sky, sunshine, very little rain," said the woman who identified herself only as Mrs. Davis, adding that winds and rain were strong overnight but did not cause major damage.

Authorities were clear: coastal communities dodged a bullet.

"We're ecstatic it didn't happen," Craig Fugate, chief of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, told reporters Saturday, referring to the expected devastation.

US communities suffered "very minimal impacts," with no reports of fatalities, he said, and states were shutting down their emergency management centers.

Residents of North Carolina were mopping up after a storm surge flooded roads on the low-lying barrier islands, as the high winds caused sporadic power outages.

Local residents hunkered down along the beach paradise's commercial spine, Route 28, parallel to the Atlantic.

They awoke to sunshine on Saturday, and quickly began pulling down plywood from storefront windows.

"We were really ready to get blasted, but we got lucky," said Ray Coombes, a recreational sailor who summers in West Yarmouth on Cape Cod and removed his boat from the water Thursday in anticipation of the storm.

Winds briefly reached as high as 80 kilometers per hour overnight and rains were heavy. Hyannis, home of the fabled Kennedy family compound, received 11 centimeters of rain.

Weather watchers said Earl was still the most powerful storm to threaten the US Northeast since 1991, when Hurricane Bob killed six people.

But as it rakes over eastern Canada, Earl left balmy weather in its wake on the US coast.

On the beaches by Hyannis and Yarmouth, which were empty Friday, Labor Day holiday crowds were returning for some end-of-summer sand and sunshine.

"The beach is perfect today," said Sharon Patterson, who was visiting Smuggler's Beach in South Yarmouth with her three children.

Fugate, however, cautioned that the United States was still 87 days away from the end of hurricane season.

"As FEMA resets from Hurricane Earl... we continue to keep an eye on the tropics."