Over 500,000 without power as nor'easter bashes New England

Over half a million people were in the dark across New England Thursday after a powerful nor'easter struck overnight, bringing violent winds that toppled trees and power lines.

In the coastal Massachusetts town of Duxbury, where wind gusts reached 80 mph, Fire Capt. Rob Reardon told ABC News: "This whole town got hit pretty hard. You can tell by just the amount of trees, the wires, the damage to houses."

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"Roads are blocked, schools are shut down because school buses can't access these streets at all," Reardon said. "We're having a difficult time trying to get to calls from one side of town to the other."

"Luckily no injuries," he added.

Over 519,000 customers were without power Thursday afternoon across Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

Reardon is urging those who see downed wires to not touch them.

"We don't know if they're energized or not, so please call us," he said.

As the nor'easter hammered the New England coast Wednesday night, the pounding wind gusts reached 90 mph on Cape Cod in Provincetown, and 70 mph in Boston. The storm went through a meteorological process called bombogenesis overnight, making it a bomb cyclone.

In Greenwich, Connecticut, winds reached 58 mph, while in Bar Harbor, Maine, gusts reached 70 mph.

The most rainfall was in upstate New York, where some areas north of Albany saw up to 5 inches. New London, Connecticut, saw 3 to 4 inches of rain, stranding people in cars. One person had to be rescued from a basement apartment, firefighters said.

Wind alerts remain in effect across a large portion of the Northeast Thursday afternoon.

The winds are expected to gradually diminish during the evening rush hour.

ABC News' Whit Johnson and Will Gretsky contributed to this report.