Spring Surge

Vicious April weather — with snow gusts and up to 9 inches of rain — brought more than flowers to parts of N.Y., N.J. and New England. The Nor’easter brought widespread flooding and power outages that took several lives and required thousands to evacuate their homes. Insurance Services Office’s Property Claims Services unit estimated the storms caused $1.2 billion in insured property damage in 18 states and the District of Columbia. In Connecticut alone, the storm damaged 179 businesses and more than 2,400 homes, the government said. Government costs associated with the storm totaled $12 million, and private losses in the state were put at more than $31.2 million. In New Jersey, the storm was blamed for at least two deaths and forced more than 1,400 people from their homes. The central part of the state was the hardest hit, with Middlesex and Somerset counties reporting the bulk of the evacuations. In New Hampshire thousands of homes and businesses lost power, in some cases for weeks.