Remnants of Hurricane Noel rip up US coast

COASTAL residents in Boston cleaned up tree branches and utilities repaired broken power lines yesterday after the remnants of Hurricane Noel struck the north east.

No evacuations, deaths or serious injuries were linked to the storm in the region, said Peter Judge of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

The state’s only serious flooding was on Brandt Point on Nantucket, where roads were closed for a few hours, he said.

Earlier, Noel was blamed for at least 57 deaths in Haiti, 84 in the Dominican Republic and one each in the Bahamas and Jamaica, making it the deadliest storm of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season.

Thousands were homeless because of catastrophic flooding on the islands and extensive damage was reported in Cuba.

When the storm’s remnants skirted the coast on Saturday, high wind warnings were posted for parts of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey and New York.

The storm knocked out power to about 80,000 Massachusetts customers on Saturday, most on Cape Cod. The storm dropped more than five inches of rain on parts of Maine, with six inches of snow in the northern end of the state.