CNN —At least five people are dead and two are missing after a powerful storm brought dangerous flooding and travel disruptions to the East Coast and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in the Northeast, which faced cold temperatures and a continued risk of flooding amid the outages on Tuesday.

The storm system carved a chaotic path up the East Coast from the weekend into early Tuesday, leaving a man in Pennsylvania and women in South Carolina and New York – all in their 70s – dead after their vehicles were submerged in water, officials reported. Two other deaths were reported in Maine and Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, a search is ongoing for two people who went missing after their vehicle was swept into rising floodwaters in the town of Mexico in Maine, the town police department said Tuesday.

 
 
Two people were rescued Monday from the vehicle, which was attempting to cross the Red Bridge into Rumford when it was pulled into the intense floodwaters of a river, police said.

Nearly 100 state roads in Maine remained closed Tuesday due to downed trees and power lines, flooding and significant infrastructure damage, according to the Maine Department of Transportation.

Four counties – Oxford, Franklin, Somerset and Kennebec – are experiencing more than half of the road closures, the department said.

 
Almost three dozen bridges have been closed statewide due to high and fast-running water, the department said. Most of the closures are out of precaution, but a few are due to apparent structural damage.

As the storm walloped the Northeast on Monday, it unleashed 2 to 6 inches of rain across the region in a 24-hour period. The heavy rainfall triggered flooding that engulfed cars, trapped drivers on inundated roadways in New Jersey and Connecticut and prompted water rescues in New Hampshire and Maine.

On Tuesday, temperatures across the Northeast dropped 15-20 degrees, with some parts of the region expected to reach below freezing temperatures overnight – providing a challenge to those who lost power in the storm.

The good news: The wind has died down and precipitation has mostly ended, except for some snow showers in interior New England.

Most of the roads leading to Farmington, Maine, reopened Tuesday afternoon after access to the town was blocked due to rising floodwaters, Farmington Fire Chief Tim Hardy told CNN.

Fire crews “went door to door in the areas of town most vulnerable to flooding” Monday night “and requested that residents evacuate, but it was not mandatory,” Town Manager Erica LaCroix said. Officials advised the public not to attempt to travel to or through Farmington.

The town of Eustis, Maine, is an “island” due to damage to roads, the Eustis Fire Department said in a Facebook post made late Tuesday morning.

The weather hit holiday travel Monday, with over 1,200 flights delayed and 500 canceled into and out of New York, Boston and Washington, DC, area airports.

Amtrak suspended all train operations in Vermont on Monday, the state’s Secretary of Transportation Joe Flynn said.

Though the storm moved into Canada and rainfall has largely subsided in the Northeast, impacts lingered over New England on Tuesday. The threat of flooding remains for communities where river levels are still peaking.

Parts of western New York and Pennsylvania may also see snowfall, along with parts of the Great Lakes and Appalachians.