BOSTON (Reuters) - Floodwaters receded and clear skies stretched across the Northeastern United States on Sunday after a record week of torrential rain, but a blast of gale-force wind knocked out power to thousands of homes.

Winds of up to 50 mph (80 kph) uprooted trees in the saturated ground, bringing down power lines and leaving nearly 14,000 Connecticut homes without electricity and a peak of about 18,000 in the rest of New England.

By late evening, much of the power had been restored in central and eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. About 2,600 homes there were still without electricity by 10 p.m., a spokesman for the National Grid power utility in Massachusetts said.

Emergency and utility crews worked late on Sunday to repair damage caused by the rain and floods that swamped cities across the Northeast, washed out roads, triggered mudslides and forced more than 1,000 people to flee waterlogged homes.

The driving rain, strong winds and floods killed at least nine people, including a 54-year-old woman whose body was found on the banks of a swollen river in Chaplin, Connecticut, on Sunday after she slipped and fell into the rushing water.

Massachusetts, Connecticut and southern New Hampshire basked in their first sunshine in more than a week, a day after clear skies opened over New York and New Jersey, where about 12 inches of rain had fallen since October 7.

"The floodwaters have receded but it's not totally over yet," said Peter Judge, spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

The downpour soaked New York City with its wettest October since 1903, said Matthew Tauber of the local National Weather Service office. It was the wettest on record in New Jersey, Connecticut, central Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Emergency shelters closed and passenger rail operator Amtrak resumed service that had been suspended because of water on the tracks, including its high-speed Acela Express between Connecticut and Boston.

In Massachusetts, rains swamped the city center of Worcester, about 45 miles west of Boston, under about 4 feet of water. Up to 600 people spent Saturday night in emergency shelters in western and central Massachusetts near Worcester.

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney lifted a state of emergency on Sunday and said the worst was over after estimating the floods likely caused $6.5 million in damage -- a threshold that would make the state eligible for federal aid.

"The worry now is the wind. With the ground so soggy, trees can come loose easily and bring down power lines," said New Hampshire Bureau of Emergency Management spokesman Jim Van Dongen. "And there is a lot of recovery work to do."