Hundreds of people were evacuated from flooded homes Monday and refrigerators and trucks floated downstream as a fierce nor'easter drenched the Northeast with record rainfall, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses.

Nine deaths were blamed on the huge storm.

Washouts, flooding, mudslides and fallen trees blocked roads. As waves pounded the coast, boats sank at their piers in Maine.

Suburbs north of New York City were among the hardest hit. Mamaroneck resident Nicholas Staropoli said a truck near his home "actually floated up on the riverbank."

Rain was still falling Monday morning in the New York area and New England after it began early Sunday along the East Coast from Florida to New England. By afternoon, it was light and intermittent.

Mamaroneck police and firefighters spent the night rescuing residents from 60 to 70 homes, said Town Administrator Stephen Altieri. More than two dozen National Guard members used trucks and Humvees to help evacuate low-lying sections of the town.

"There was debris flowing down the river like you wouldn't believe - refrigerators, I mean, you name it, it was going down the river," homeowner John Vitro said of the Mamaroneck River.

The rain totaled 8.21 inches in suburban White Plains from early Sunday to Monday morning, with 7.81 inches in New York City's Central Park, the
National Weather Service said. The previous Central Park record for April 15 was just 1.8 inches, set in 1906. Eliot, Maine, got nearly 7 inches.

Snow fell in inland areas, including 17 inches in Vermont. Wind gusts to more than 80 mph toppled trees on highways in Maine.

New York had activated 3,200 Guard members to help with evacuations and New Hampshire sent 200 to hard-hit towns. The Connecticut National Guard supplied amphibious vehicles to the hard-hit southwestern part of the state.

More than 780,000 homes and businesses had lost power from Maine to North Carolina, where some 235,000 customers were blacked out. Public Service Company of New Hampshire said some of its customers could be without power for several days because roads were washed out.

"We have incredible amounts of damage," said Steve Costello, a spokesman for Central Vermont Public Service, describing power lines brought down by high wind. "I've never seen anything like it."

Pounding waves completely covered the beach at Hampton Beach, N.H.

"We went to look, but the wind was so strong that you couldn't walk. ... The wind just turned you back," said Linda Pepin of Bristol, Conn., who owns a condominium less than 50 feet from the Hampton Beach shore.

More than 1,400 New Jersey residents were evacuated because of flooding.

Elsewhere, however, hundreds of evacuees were allowed to return home Monday at Hamlin, W.Va., after officials determined that an unstable earthen dam was no long in danger of bursting.

Crews had pumped thousands of gallons of water from the lake formed by the privately built dam and lowered the lake by 6 feet, said Lincoln County Emergency Services Director Allen Holder.

Fierce wind toppled trees onto a northern New Hampshire highway as Bob Eastman was driving through on Monday morning. "It was a wonder it didn't blow you off the road," he said.

Coastal residents were urged to evacuate in parts of Maine, and a nursing home in Portland was evacuated as a precaution, state officials said. In southeastern New Hampshire, parts of downtown Newmarket were evacuated because of flooding.

Flights were delayed Monday at Boston and the New York area's three major airports, where airlines canceled some 600 flights Sunday as wind gusted to 48 mph, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Amtrak's Downeaster suspended service in Maine because tracks were washed out in Berwick. Flooding delayed or canceled Amtrak service between Boston and Washington.

At Union City, N.J., a large section of a 4-foot-thick, 50-foot-high stone wall collapsed onto a busy road during the night, and rescue workers used heavy machinery and dogs Monday to see if any cars had been buried. "There could be, and that's the assumption we have to operate under," said David Curtis, deputy chief of North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue.

One person died in a car stalled in deep water in an underpass in New Jersey, one person was killed by a tornado in South Carolina, and two died in car accidents - one in upstate New York and one in Connecticut. The same storm was blamed for five deaths earlier in Texas and Kansas.

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Associated Press writers By Clarke Canfield in Portland, Maine, Tom Breen in Hamlin, W.Va., David Porter in Union City, N.J., Wayne Parry in Trenton, N.J., and Katharine Webster in Hampton, N.H., also contributed to this report.