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50-year-old Gary Phillips killed after storm winds caused a tree to fall on a car that he was inside
Earlier this week, when Hurricane Lee was in Florida, officials said a 15-year-old swimmer died after drowning in the rip current, the outlet reports.
The aftermath of Hurricane Lee has resulted in two casualties and more than 150,000 households left without power, as powerful winds wreak havoc.
A 50-year-old Gary Phillips lost his life as the storm tore through New England.
A second fatality linked to Lee occurred in the U.S. on Saturday, as the expansive storm lashed New England with destructive winds, causing power outages for over 300,000 customers in both the U.S. and Canada at the height of the cyclone.
The initial death transpired in Florida earlier in the week when the then-Hurricane Lee generated hazardous rip currents, resulting in the tragic drowning of a 15-year-old swimmer.
On Saturday, authorities reported that gusts from the Post-Tropical Cyclone Lee toppled a tree onto a car in Searsport, Maine, claiming the life of a 50-year-old man inside.
As per the National Hurricane Center, the storm made landfall on Long Island near Nova Scotia, Canada, with wind speeds of approximately 70 mph. Though the designation shifted from “hurricane” to “post-tropical cyclone,” for residents in New England, the distinction is primarily semantic.
The storm is presently deriving its strength from conventional atmospheric interactions between warm and cold air masses, no longer relying on the warmth of the waters below, as hurricanes and tropical storms do.
Most of the power disruptions in the U.S. occurred in Maine, but repair teams have been making consistent headway, reducing outages to roughly 50,000 by midnight.
PowerOutage.com indicated that Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island experienced the most severe impact in Canada, with outages surpassing 200,000 on Saturday.
Additionally, there were reports of intermittent cell phone service in the area, likely due to the widespread power failures.
