At least eight people have been killed as Tropical Storm Isaias battered the US East Coast after making landfall as a hurricane in North Carolina.

In New Jersey, more than 1 million homes and businesses were without electricity. Train services remained suspended while crews cleared fallen trees and repaired signals and overhead wires.

Regional rail service was also suspended in Philadelphia after Isaias raised the Schuylkill River and sent an unsecured construction barge into a bridge.

Patrick Foye, chairman of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said more than 2,000 trees fell across the system’s train and bus network.

Two people died when Isaias spun off a tornado that struck a North Carolina mobile home park.

Another person died in Pennsylvania when their vehicle was overtaken by water and swept downstream.

Three others were killed by falling trees toppled by the storm in Maryland, Connecticut and New York City, and a seventh person died in Delaware when a tree branch fell on them, authorities said.

The Coney Island boardwalk stands mostly empty as Tropical Storm Isaias churns its way up the East Coast of the USA. Photo: Getty

A woman was found dead inside a New Hampshire house Tuesday evening.

In Doylestown, Pennsylvania, officials said four children were treated for minor injuries after high winds partially tore the roof off a day care centre.

Also in the Philadelphia suburbs, rescue workers in Delaware County were searching for a young person who fell or jumped into the fast-moving water of a swollen creek.

Isaias switched between hurricane and tropical storm strength as it churned toward the East Coast.

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Fuelled by warm ocean waters, the storm got a late burst of strength as a rejuvenated hurricane with top sustained winds of 136 km/h before coming ashore .

Before making landfall in the US, Isaias killed two people in the Caribbean and battered the Bahamas before brushing past Florida.