Intense Atlantic Storm Batters East Coast : Weather: At least three people are missing at sea. Six Long Island houses are destroyed. Huge waves, hurricane-force winds cause flooding, erosion.

An intense, slow-moving Atlantic storm hurled hurricane-force winds and towering waves at the East Coast on Wednesday, collapsing homes on Long Island and causing flooding, beach erosion and power outages from the Carolinas to Maine. More than 30 people were rescued at sea, and at least three more were missing.

“Hurricane Bob was a squall compared to this,” said Jerry Congdon, a police officer in Wells, Me. Hurricane Bob caused an estimated $780 million in damage to insured property as it raced up the East Coast in August.

A huge winter storm in the Rockies and Plains, meanwhile, dropped snow as far south as Texas on Wednesday and had Colorado ski resorts preparing to open early. The rain-swollen Trinity River poured over its banks in Dallas.

The National Weather Service warned people who might want to see the Atlantic storm’s effects along the Maine coast: “Do not venture near the water to walk on the rocks--you will be swept away.”

Waves did sweep a fisherman away at Point Judith, R.I.

Wind gusted to 75 m.p.h.--hurricane force--along the New England coast, and waves topped 25 feet in areas.

“We had whitecaps going right through the back yard,” said Mary Voelger of Scituate, Mass., who was rescued from her home on a backhoe at high tide.

High tide was more than three feet above normal in Maine, and many coastal communities reported flooding. At Gilgo Beach on New York’s Long Island, the tidal surge washed out 12-foot sand dunes and flattened the beach in some areas.

At Westhampton Beach in eastern Long Island, six houses that were believed to have been abandoned collapsed into the ocean. Four other homes were heavily damaged, police said.

The unnamed storm formed early this week off Nova Scotia and is called “extra-tropical” because it did not form in the tropics as hurricanes do, said weather service meteorologist Robert McElhearn.

Though it has some hurricane characteristics--including a counterclockwise swirling motion--this storm has very slow forward motion and could pummel the Northeast coast until early Friday, forecasters said.

Also unusual was how it was moving toward the west and south--opposite of most hurricanes in the Northeast. On Wednesday night the storm was centered more than 300 miles east of the New Jersey coast and very slowly drifting toward shore.

“The problem is the storm has been out there for days churning up the water. Hurricane Bob just came and was gone,” said Tom Hawley, another weather service meteorologist.

A 36-foot sailboat was missing in rough water more than 600 miles east of Daytona Beach, Fla. Three Coast Guard rescuers trying to help two women and a man in a stranded 32-foot sailboat south of Nantucket, Mass., had to be rescued themselves from 30-foot seas by helicopter. The Coast Guard plucked four men from another sailboat about 300 miles east of Chesapeake Bay and four others from a boat that capsized off eastern Long Island.

Another four men were rescued from their foundering sailboat about 300 miles off Virginia; the Coast Guard had delayed attempts to rescue them Tuesday night because of 30-foot seas.

“There were moments of terror. But we just had to ride it out,” said Mike Gloor, 32, of Wakefield, R.I.

Ten people were rescued from boats along the Connecticut coast, while a Coast Guard helicopter rescued five fishermen whose boat was grounded on Noman’s Island south of Cape Cod. Two sailboats, each longer than 40 feet, came ashore in Vineyard Haven on Martha’s Vineyard, authorities said.

High waves pounded North Carolina’s Outer Banks, closing the main highway along Hatteras Island and causing power outages. The Pilgrim nuclear power plant at Plymouth, Mass., shut down as a precaution.