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MONTREAL - Earl roared ashore in Canada's Nova Scotia as a hurricane on Saturday, with winds of up to 120 kilometres (74 miles) per hour, drenching the province with rain, the Canadian Hurricane Centre said.
The huge weather system had lost some steam as it barrelled up the US East Coast overnight, dropping to tropical storm strength, but Earl appeared to re-energise in the hours before making landfall in eastern Canada.
"As of the past hour, Hurricane Earl is still a hurricane," CHC meteorologist John Parker told AFP, adding that the eye of the storm was churning over southern Nova Scotia.
The Miami-based US National Hurricane Center (NHC) categorized it as a tropical storm, but said a hurricane watch was in effect for Nova Scotia.
The storm knocked out power in some 30,000 homes between Liverpool and eastern Halifax County. Greater Moncton International Airport cancelled all flights Saturday, although Halifax Stanfield International Airport was partially operating.
The winds were still well removed from the brutal conditions just 36 hours earlier when Earl was a major, category four hurricane threatening devastation across several US states.
It steadily lost steam Friday after powering toward the US coast, but it still lashed several hundred kilometres of seaboard with heavy rains and strong winds, closing beaches and 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.
Residents of North Carolina were mopping up after a storm surge sent waves crashing ashore, flooding roads on the low-lying barrier islands as the high winds caused sporadic power outages.
Authorities were clear: coastal communities dodged a bullet.
"At this time we have no official reports of fatalities related to the storm track nor do we have any report of damage," Craig Fugate, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), told reporters on Friday.
Despite the downgrading of the storm, transport overnight to and from Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard -- where US President Barack Obama vacationed with his family in late August -- was limited, with flights and ferries cancelled.
Friday's traffic commute over Cape Cod's two bridges was extremely light, given the Labor Day weekend usually boasts a four-to-five-hour gridlock.
Across Cape Cod, storm warnings had sent utility crews out trimming tree limbs from electrical lines and setting up rescue staging areas by the Cape's main mall to confront power outages.
Heeding warnings, local residents hunkered down along the beach paradise's commercial spine, Route 28, parallel to the Atlantic.
Commercial and residential properties in Cape Cod were boarded up with heavy plywood but many businesses had signs spray painted "Still Open" in neon colours.
Weather watchers said Earl was still the most powerful storm to threaten the US Northeast since 1991, when Hurricane Bob killed six people.
Joe Gurl, owner of the Polar Cave ice cream shop in West Yarmouth, said tourists had left Cape Cod "in a hurry" on Thursday.
But they were expected to flock back to the beaches for the Labor Day holiday, which traditionally marks the last busy beach weekend of summer.
- AFP /ls/fa
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