Nor'easter battering northeastern US causes widespread destruction

A rare early-autumn nor'easter that is battering the coast of the US Northeast with heavy rain and gusty winds has claimed at least one life. Meteorologists warn the storm may stall over the region through Monday.

The country's emergency management agency says response coordination centres are operating at an "enhanced posture," and teams are on standby in New England in case of widespread outages.

The powerful slow-rolling storm that creeps up the east coast has caused significant destruction from the Mid-Atlantic up through the state of Massachusetts.

Media reports say electricity was knocked out to about 10,000 customers in those regions at one point, as emergency crews rush to restore power. 2,000 flights face cancellations due to adverse weather. Tens of millions of people remain the path of the nor'easter on Sunday.

A Wareham resident tells local broadcaster WCVB that she wakes up to a bang during the wee hours as a tree fell over her home and totalled her vehicle. "I was asleep at 3am, all of a sudden I heard boom! And I said, it's the tree.

Building inspector came, he said it's safe but I am not sleeping upstairs. The car took the worst damage, its totalled."

In coastal towns like Scituate, some people on the shorefront seem to take pleasure in beholding the rare spectacle of huge waves whipped up by the nor'easter.

One says: "Which is why it's kind of more fun. It's rare, you're used to snow, not being able to go outside like this, snow banks and you can actually go see the water, ocean. It could have been a beach day, instead it's a nor'easter."

A Housing Authority employee in Brooklyn, New York City, was killed after being crushed by a wind-toppled tree.

This while roads remain waterlogged in nearby New Jersey, where the Shrewsbury River reportedly inundated parts of Sea Bright and parking areas.

A restaurant team in the state's Stone Harbor scrambled to dry out the water pushed into the venue by waves and winds Saturday morning to prepare for a wedding rehearsal dinner in the evening.

The city of Norfolk in Virginia has seen isolated flooding all week. Makeshift water barriers have been set up at the base of apartment doors.

Resident Ellie Hodge, who is watching vehicles wading through flooded streets, notes they get this kind of flooding four or five times a year but this is unusual because it persists several days with high tides.

She says, "The other day it was up to where we're standing right now. And we've seen cars get stuck on the road, going up the sidewalks. And it's been pretty bad this time."