A storm that brought high winds and heavy rains slammed swaths of the Northeast on Thursday, claiming the life of a priest in Northern New York, flooding roads and leaving hundreds of thousands without power, officials said.

As of Saturday morning, more than 241,000 buildings and homes in New York were without electricity, and nearly 60 roads were closed, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s office said. The governor declared states of emergency for 12 New York counties, many of them in the North Country.

The storm struck parts of Western New York Thursday and moved across northern parts of the state into Friday, with gusts of up to 70 miles per hour, leaving a wake of flooded roadways and power losses.

Two-hundred members of the National Guard and 5,000 power company workers were dispatched to help.

“These situations can be a matter of life and death, and I am urging all New Yorkers to exercise extreme caution and only travel if necessary,” Mr. Cuomo said in a news release.

The priest, Father J. Thomas Connery, 82, of the Diocese of Albany, died in Norway, N.Y., after getting caught in floodwaters on Thursday night, the State Police said.

The police, citing an eyewitness, said Father Connery drove his 2017 Ford Fusion through a flooded area, barely making it through.

The car got stuck, and when he exited the vehicle and tried to walk through the waters, he lost his footing and was washed downstream. His body was not recovered until Friday, about a quarter-mile from his car, the police said.

“Father Tom lived and died amidst the storm waters of life across which he led countless souls,” Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger said in a statement posted by the Diocese of Albany on Facebook.

Norway, which is about 85 miles northwest of Albany, is in Herkimer County, which was one of the counties especially hard hit.

In Essex County in the Adirondacks, Steve Cross, 61, the owner of Halfway House Motel and Restaurant in Elizabethtown, N.Y., said the Bouquet River rose beyond its banks, coming within feet of his business.

“It caught us by surprise,” Mr. Cross said. “No one expected anything like this. The water was higher than when Hurricane Irene came through.”

Mr. Cross said it rained overnight on Thursday, and it was like “a cloud burst up in the mountain,” forcing the roads around the motel and restaurant to close on Thursday night and during the day on Friday.

In Maine, powerful winds knocked down trees, littered roads with debris and left thousands without electricity, emergency management officials said.

Central Maine Power, the state’s largest electricity utility, said crews and contractors had started clearing roads before dawn on Friday, and restored power to more than 100,000 customers throughout the day, according to a news release.

However, the wind storm continued throughout Friday, causing tree limbs to fall on lines and utility poles, which led to new power failures even as the company worked to restore electricity, the company said.

The storm also flooded roads and downed trees in Vermont. There were no reported fatalities or serious injuries as of Friday, according to Vermont Emergency Management.

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