QUINCY — The water seeping into the basement of Margret Branschofsky’s Sea Street home during the first nor’easter to hit Massachusetts this month “just trickled in at first,’’ slowly enough that she and her son could guide the flow into floor drains.
But the trickle quickly morphed into a deluge of water that nearly engulfed her basement, destroying appliances, stored linens, and some of her daughter’s old letters and photo albums.
“We were working faster and faster, and then it just all broke in; it just came flooding in, and we could barely get upstairs,’’ Branschofsky said Saturday.
Like thousands of Massachusetts residents, Branschofsky has spent the opening days of March fighting Mother Nature, who delivered a one-two punch of coastal flooding and crippling power outages during separate nor’easters.
As of 10:02 p.m. Saturday, more than 2,300 Eversource customers remained without power, the utility said on its website. National Grid said more than 12,000 customers remained in the dark as of 9:45 p.m.
Meanwhile, hundreds of South Shore residents whose homes flooded during the storm on March 2 and 3 sought help at events in Quincy and Marshfield.
The Merrimack Valley was hit hard with power outages especially during the second of the recent storms, and in Methuen, a former city firefighter died Friday after being stricken by carbon monoxide poisoning in a home running on two generators during the power outage.
The Essex district attorney’s office said 55-year-old Joseph Sholik died at Massachusetts General Hospital after he and his 62-year-old wife were overcome inside their home at 365 Pelham St.
Sholik’s wife, who summoned emergency officials to the home Friday morning, is expected to survive. Methuen fire Deputy Chief David Toto said that section of the city lost power early Thursday during the nor’easter.
He said he wasn’t sure how long the generators had been running when firefighters went to the home. Windows were open in the basement where the generators were set up, Toto said, but the equipment requires more ventilation.
“That’s the big safety issue — not running these appliances in the house. They should be at least 5 to 10 feet away from the home,’’ he said.
Toto said he doesn’t know who installed the generators. A spokeswoman for the state Department of Fire Services said Sholik hadn’t worked as a Methuen firefighter in at least a decade. Reached by phone Saturday, Sholik’s mother declined to comment.
As of 5:17 p.m. Saturday, more than 5,100 Eversource customers remained without power, the utility said on its website. National Grid said nearly 21,00 customers remained in the dark as of 5:16 p.m.
Eversource spokesman Michael Durand said the company expects to complete most of its work to get the lights back on by Saturday evening. More than 500 line and tree-cutting crews, he said, were working in suburbs west of Boston such as Sudbury, Acton, Lexington, and Carlisle, where outages have lingered for several days.
“We truly understand how disruptive it is to be without power, particularly for long periods of time,’’ Durand said. “We want to assure everyone that we will continue to work until all of our customers have their power back.’’
In the Merrimack Valley, National Grid said it expected all customers would have their electricity restored by midnight Sunday.
South of Boston, more than 300 people gathered Saturday at the Atherton Hough Elementary School in Quincy to learn about help to get them back on their feet.
The city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund will help pay for temporary housing and emergency building repairs, officials said. An anti-poverty group, Quincy Community Action Programs, is administering a relief fund to help residents pay bills, replace lost belongings, and cover other costs.
Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch said the city would support residents as they wait to hear how much federal aid may come their way.
“At the end of the day, we’re more than a city. We’re a community,’’ he said. “We’re here for you. Not just today, every day going forward. We’ll get through this together. We’ll make it work.’’
Quincy resident Kate Whooley said her townhouse got “at least 3 feet’’ of seawater in the garage and lower level, where she stored antique furniture, Christmas ornaments, and other family mementos. Her car — bought in October — was destroyed by flooding, along with about a half-dozen other vehicles parked behind her building.
“We got rescued by the Quincy police dive team,’’ she said. “Left in a truck. . . . It was frightening.’’
In Marshfield, representatives from disaster relief organizations and state agencies gathered at Martinson Elementary School to help residents rebuild.
At the event, people picked up free mops, sponges, and bleach and applied for financial aid between $150 and $200, said Jeff Hall, spokesman for the American Red Cross of Massachusetts. Volunteers have also offered to help residents clean up their properties, he said.
“We’re really concerned about disabled and elderly families that can’t clean up from the storm,’’ Hall said.
Help will also be available at the school again Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Storm victims who can’t attend can call 211 to determine whether they qualify for assistance, Hall said.
Another nor’easter is expected to hit the region Monday night into Tuesday, said Kim Buttrick, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Taunton.
The storm doesn’t pose a threat for coastal flooding because the tides are astronomically low, but plowable snowfall is expected, she said.
Globe correspondent Laney Ruckstuhl contributed. Laura Crimaldi can be reached at laura.crimaldi@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @lauracrimaldi. Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeremycfox.
