Airlifts and water rescues in wake of Hurricane Irene (Reuters)

WAYNE, N.J./ WEST DOVER, Vermont (Reuters) – National Guard and firefighters rescued hundreds people from record flooding in New Jersey on Tuesday and Vermont planned to airlift food and water to inland towns cut off by Hurricane Irene after its paralyzing rampage through the U.S. northeast.

Irene killed about 40 people when it dumped 5 to 15 inches of rain over wide swathes of the U.S. East Coast on Saturday and Sunday. It spared New York City but caused the worst flooding in decades in inland areas of New York state, New Jersey and Vermont.

Search and rescue teams have plucked nearly 600 people from homes in recent days with the most intense efforts on Tuesday when the Passaic River measured 13 feet above flood stage, the highest level since 1903, Paterson police Sgt. Alex Popov said.

Firefighters rescued some by boat and the National Guard saved others by truck, taking them to a Red Cross shelter.

"Some are standing there in the doorway. Some are coming out of their windows," Popov said.

"It's raging," he said of the Passaic, which runs through the center of town.

Authorities expected the river to begin receding later on Tuesday.

Swollen rivers were still cresting on Tuesday and flood plains remained under water in northeastern states that were already soaked by an unusually wet summer.

Utilities restored electricity to roughly half the 6.7 million customers who had power knocked out, and New York City mass transit and air travel crept back to normal.

Irene hit North Carolina as a hurricane and moved north over major East Coast cities, then weakened to a tropical storm over New England and dissipated after tracking into Canada.

Clear skies in the northeast aided rescue efforts, but hundreds of thousands of homes were damaged, some swept away in the torrent.

In New York City's New Jersey suburbs, flood victims anxiously waited for waters to recede while just a few miles away the city buzzed anew, slowed only temporarily by an unprecedented preemptive shutdown of its mass transit system and an evacuation order on Saturday.

LOSSES FEARED IN FALL TOURIST SEASON

In Wayne, New Jersey, Mike Holland, 44, paddled his canoe away from his trailer home. The water was so deep that three cars were almost completely submerged on his street, which like several others resembled a small lake.

Holland said he was used to floods but that "this is the worst one."

"I had raised my trailer for the height of the 1984 flood plus 8 inches but this was the '84 flood plus 12. It's an easy fix but it's a pain," Holland said.

Marguerite Ball, another resident of Wayne, described the flooding as "heartbreaking" for the working class area.

"I've never seen flooding like has taken place in the last few years," Ball said. "People just get cleaned out, cleaned up, rebuild, and it happens again and again."

Vermonters already beaten down by the prolonged U.S. economic slump saw homes washed away by the floods, then were forced to cope with washed out roads that isolated rural communities and complicated recovery from the state's worst flooding in more than 80 years.

"Economically, I'm devastated," said Betsey Reagan, owner of Dot's Diner in West Dover, Vermont. "Who knows what is going to happen, how long it is going to take to take to get all this lost. We'll miss the foliage season, who knows what the winter is going to be like. Tourists can't come if the roads aren't open."

The timing of the storm, at the end of summer and before the Labor Day holiday weekend, was particularly troubling for businesses whose peak season comes in the fall and winter when visitors flock to see leaves turn colors and for skiing.

Some 260 Vermont roads remained closed and the state was beginning to deploy crews of workers, backed up by the National Guard, to repair them.

The state planned to distribute food and water to towns cut off from supplies due to road outages. In some cases those supplies would be airlifted in, said Mark Bosma, a spokesman for the Vermont Division of Emergency Management.

Irene killed at least 38 people in 11 states, in addition to three who died in the Dominican Republic and one in Puerto Rico when the storm was still in the Caribbean, authorities said.

Total economic damage could reach $20 billion, Standard & Poor's Senior Economist Beth Ann Bovino said. Hundreds of thousands of homes suffered damage, raising questions about how much would be covered by insurance as many homeowner policies do not cover flood damage.

U.S. President Barack Obama pledged aid for cash-strapped states and cities, but the federal money was not expected to cover all the costs for local jurisdictions already facing a fiscal crisis.

(Additional reporting by Dave Warner; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Jackie Frank)

View the original article here

Irene batters shuttered New York but worst is over (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Hurricane Irene lashed New York with heavy winds and driving rain on Sunday, flooding some of Lower Manhattan's deserted streets and large parts of the northeast, but the feared major devastation was avoided as the storm lost some of its punch.

Irene was downgraded to a tropical storm on Sunday morning after marching up the East Coast, leaving 11 dead, as many as 3.6 million customers without electricity, forcing the closure of New York's mass transit system, and the cancellation of thousands of flights.

"It's safe to say that the worst of the storm up to and including New York and New Jersey has passed," Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano said late Sunday morning as the sun started to peek through the clouds in New York City.

She said pre-storm preparations dramatically reduced the loss of life, but warned that river flooding across the eastern seaboard posed a danger.

While weakened, the swirling storm still packed a wallop, sending waves crashing onto shorelines and flooding coastal suburbs and broad swathes of New Jersey, where residents reported basements full of water and numerous trees down.

There was about a foot of water in the streets at the South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan before the tide began receding. There appeared to be less damage than many had feared, and New Yorkers shrugged it off.

"It's not bad as they said it would be. The streets are flooded but not as bad as I thought," said John Harris, 37, who defied an evacuation order and stayed home overnight in the Rockaways.

Wall Street's financial district seemed largely unaffected as did Ground Zero, where the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks is soon to be observed. The New York Mercantile Exchange building planned to open as usual on Monday, while the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market also said they expected a normal trading day.

But the big question for residents and the millions who commute to work in the city each day, was whether the city's subways and public transportation would be allowed to resume in time for Monday's rush hour after being closed from noon on Saturday.

About 370,000 city residents were ordered to leave their homes in low-lying areas in an unprecedented move by the authorities. It was unclear when they would be allowed to return.

BEACH DAMAGE

Heavy rains and wind forced the closure of three bridges leading to the Rockaways peninsula facing the Atlantic Ocean, and further east on Long Island sand berms built to hold off the flooding and protect coastal businesses appeared to have failed. Six inches of rain fell on Central Park.

Irene was blamed for at least 11 deaths in North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and Maryland as it churned up the East Coast.

By 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) Irene's winds had diminished to 60 mph (95 kmh) and the center had reached Danbury, Connecticut, about 70 miles northeast of New York.

There was a general sense in New York that the storm, reported on breathlessly for days by television reporters, was not as bad as it could have been.

"The water looks really groovy, it's like in that movie 'The Perfect Storm,' -- it's swelling every way and the wind is blowing it every way, it's heaving," said Jill Rubenstein, speaking from her third-floor apartment in an evacuation zone at the Harlem Yacht Club on City Island in the Bronx.

New York City's normally bustling streets were mostly quiet overnight but as the waters receded, tourists and locals began venturing out for a look around New York's Times Square, where Broadway shows had been canceled in anticipation of the bad weather.

In Astoria, Queens, about a dozen people were out on the waterfront overlooking Manhattan, some snapping photographs of a partially flooded playground.

The storm dumped up to eight inches of rain on the Washington region, but the capital avoided major damage. Some bridges were closed but airports remained open and transit operated on a normal schedule.

Rick Meehan, mayor of Ocean City, Maryland, said initial assessments showed flooding and continuing power outages in some areas of the seaside resort, but not much damage.

"It looks like we dodged a missile on this one," Meehan told the local Fox News station, WBOC News.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told NBC's "Meet the Press" he expects damages from Irene to be costly, possibly worth billions of dollars, along the Atlantic coast and from inland river flooding.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it could take several days to make preliminary damage assessments.

On the south shore of Long Island, Jim Nolan, a 55-year-old architect, was out making his own assessment of the area around his home on the shore of a lagoon at Copiague. But downed trees and flooding stopped him from driving very far.

"It was about as bad as I expected," he added of the storm. "The more scientific weather channels had a tropical storm, the high end news companies had doom and gloom reports of 80 to 90 miles an hour -- I just didn't believe it."

He had a busy night taking care of his 34-foot cabin cruiser tied to a dock by a number of lines that broke during the night. "About 3 O'clock two snapped, two snapped about four or five o'clock and one snapped half an hour ago," Nolan said. "It was nice and warm so I put my bathing suit on and went out there to work on it with my son," Nolan said.

BAD YEAR FOR U.S. STORMS

From the Carolinas to Maine, tens of millions of people were in the path of Irene, which howled ashore in North Carolina on Saturday, dumping torrential rain, felling trees and knocking out power. The storm was forecast to pass over parts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island later on Sunday.

After Irene, weather watchers were keeping an eye on Tropical Storm Jose, which formed near Bermuda.

This year has been one of the most extreme for weather in U.S. history, with $35 billion in losses so far from floods, tornadoes and heat waves.

(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher in Miami; Joe Rauch and Jim Brumm in Wilmington, N.C.; Tom Hals in Delaware; Claudia Parsons, Basil Katz and Jonathan Allen in New York; Alistair Bell, Malahti Nayak, Andy Sullivan, David Morgan and Lisa Lambert in Washington; Andrea Shalal-Esa in Ocean City; Michael Fitzpatrick in Long Branch, New Jersey. Writing by Steve Holland, Editing by Jackie Frank, Martin Howell)

View the original article here

Obama meets with advisers for update on Irene (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama held a video conference on Sunday with key officials involved in the response to Hurricane Irene as the storm pounded New York City with winds and heavy rain.

"The president was updated on the response and recovery efforts that are currently under way in coordination with state and local officials as well as the status of critical energy and transportation infrastructure," the White House said in a statement.

Among the officials participating in the conference call were White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Craig Fugate, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In the call in the White House Situation Room, Obama asked Napolitano and Fugate to keep in close contact with state and local officials about their response needs.

The White House said Obama planned to reconvene the team on Sunday evening.

(Writing by Caren Bohan; Editing by Bill Trott and Eric Beech)

View the original article here

East Coast readies for "big, bad" Hurricane Irene (Reuters)

WILMINGTON, North Carolina (Reuters) – The United States urged 55 million people on its East Coast on Friday to prepare for the onslaught of massive Hurricane Irene, which President Barack Obama warned could be "extremely dangerous and costly."

"All indications point to this being a historic hurricane," Obama said, as Irene, a wide storm packing winds of more than 100 miles per hour, bore down on the North Carolina coast for an expected landfall on Saturday.

Hundreds of thousands of vacationers and residents were evacuating from coastal areas there and further northward up the East Coast.

Forecasters expect the menacing, broad hurricane to rake up the densely populated eastern seaboard starting on Saturday, then extend on Sunday to New York, America's most populous city with more than 8 million residents, and then into New England.

"The wind field is huge," National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read told Reuters Insider.

The NHC said hurricane force winds extended outward up to 90 miles from Irene's center, while tropical storm force winds extended out to 290 miles, giving the storm a vast wind field width of nearly 600 miles.

Federal and state leaders, from Obama downward, urged the millions of Americans in the hurricane's path to prepare and to heed evacuation orders if they received them.

"If you are in the projected path of this hurricane, you have to take precautions now .... don't wait, don't delay," Obama said, speaking from the island of Martha's Vineyard off the Massachusetts coast where he is vacationing.

"We all hope for the best but we have to be prepared for the worst," Obama added.

In earlier comments, NHC chief Read said Irene, which will be the first significant hurricane to affect the populous Northeast in decades, would lash the eastern seaboard with tropical storm-force winds and a "huge swath of rain" from the Carolinas to New England.

He said North Carolina would start seeing tropical storm conditions on Friday afternoon. Cities like Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York could experience heavy rain and wind and power outages from the weekend.

Irene weakened early on Friday to a Category 2 hurricane from a 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, but it still was carrying winds of up to 105 miles per hour.

At 11 a.m., its center was churning north 330 miles south-southwest of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

The Miami-based hurricane center suggested on Friday Irene may already have peaked during its passage over the Bahamas, when its wind speeds made it a Category 3 "major" hurricane.

But it could still roar up the eastern seaboard as a broad and dangerous Category 2.

"BIG, BAD STORM"

Coastal communities from the Carolinas to New England stocked up on food and water and tried to secure homes, vehicles and boats. States, cities, ports, hospitals, oil refineries and nuclear plants activated emergency plans.

"We've been through about four or five (hurricanes), but this looks like it'll be the worst," Henry Burke, a vacation homeowner in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, told Reuters.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano urged residents not to delay precautions. "The window of preparation is quickly closing," Napolitano said.

"This is a big, bad storm," North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue told CNN.

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley told the TV network: "Anyone who thinks this is just a normal hurricane and they can stick it out is being ... selfish and stupid."

The capital was also expected to feel heavy wind and rain. Extensive flight and rail service cancellations were expected.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) chief Craig Fugate warned millions on the seaboard to expect power outages "for days," flash-flooding and strong winds.

EQECAT, a company that helps the insurance industry predict disaster damage, said Irene's forecast track represented "one of the worst-case scenarios" for the United States.

Wall Street firms scrambled to raise cash into early next week in case Irene causes major disruption in trading.

The repurchase market, a major source of cash for Wall Street firms to fund trades and operations, showed an increase in interest rates on loans that mature on Monday, a sign markets are worried there could be disruptions, if only temporary.

Northeast oil, natural gas and power facilities also made preparations.

Oil prices rose slightly in choppy trade on Friday as traders weighed the approach of Irene toward refineries on the coast against concern about the health of the U.S. economy.

NORTHEAST CITIES PREPARE

Coastal evacuations were under way in North Carolina and were ordered for beach resorts in Virginia, Delaware and Maryland. Airlines began to cut flights at eastern airports.

North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut have declared emergencies.

Irene will be the first hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Ike pounded Texas in 2008.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Friday that New York City's mass transit system, the nation's biggest that serves 8 million riders a day, will be shut beginning around noon on Saturday because of expected flooding and high winds from Irene.

Cuomo said in a statement the loss of subways, buses and commuter lines that serve the city and nearby suburbs could complicate evacuations.

In Washington, Irene forced the postponement of Sunday's dedication ceremony for the new memorial honoring civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Tens of thousands of people, including President Barack Obama, had been expected to attend.

Flooding from Irene killed at least one person in Puerto Rico and two in Dominican Republic. The storm knocked out power in the Bahamian capital, Nassau, and blocked roads with trees.

(Reporting by Jane Sutton, Tom Brown, Manuel Rueda in Miami, Daniel Trotta, Richard Leong, Joan Gralla and Ben Berkowitz in New York; Jeremy Pelofsky and Vicki Allen in Washington, Laura MacInnis and Alister Bull on Martha's Vineyard; Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Philip Barbara)

View the original article here

Obama says Hurricane Irene "extremely dangerous" (Reuters)

CHILMARK, Massachusetts (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Friday warned Americans to take Hurricane Irene seriously and urged them to obey orders to evacuate from the path of what is likely to be an "extremely dangerous and costly" storm.

"All indications point to this being a historic hurricane," Obama said in a statement to reporters from the farm where he is vacationing on an island off the Boston coast.

Fifty-five million people are potentially in Hurricane Irene's path, from the Carolinas to Cape Cod on the U.S. East Coast, and tens of thousands are evacuating as cities including New York brace for the powerful storm to hit.

"I cannot stress this highly enough. If you are in the projected path of this hurricane, you have to take precautions now. Don't wait. Don't delay," Obama said.

Obama and his family will leave Martha's Vineyard on Saturday, well before Irene is projected to scour its way this far north on the New England coast. But the vacation had already been marked by natural disaster, after the island felt an earthquake in Virginia on Tuesday that shook Washington and New York.

Obama has held regular conference calls with aides on the storm, in a determined effort to learn from the mistakes of his predecessor George W. Bush, who was slammed for an ineffectual response after Hurricane Katrina swamped New Orleans in 2005.

"All of us have to take this storm seriously ... If you are given an evacuation order, please follow it," Obama said.

(Reporting by Laura MacInnis and Alister Bull, Editing by Sandra Maler)

View the original article here

U.S. alert as Hurricane Irene threatens East Coast (Reuters)

SANTO DOMINGO (Reuters) – Hurricane Irene posed a potential threat to the entire U.S. East Coast from Florida to New England, U.S. officials said on Tuesday, as forecasters tried to predict where the powerful storm might hit over the next week.

U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate and National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read issued the warning as Irene swept up from the Caribbean on a northwest track toward the United States.

"We're going to have a very large tropical cyclone move up the Eastern Seaboard over the next five to seven days," Read told a conference call in which he spoke along with Fugate.

The FEMA chief said residents all along the East Coast should be alert not only to a potential direct landfall but also to the risk of torrential rains, high winds and flooding that Irene could bring.

"We're saying the entire East Coast," Fugate said.

Irene, now a Category 2 storm, was heading on Tuesday over the Turks and Caicos Islands and southeastern Bahamas. It was expected to become a major Category 3 storm, with winds over 111 mph, by Wednesday and could possibly intensify further to a Category 4 as it neared the southeast U.S. coast by Friday.

Calling Irene a "very large storm," Read said the Miami-based NHC's "best guess" forecast at the moment was that the hurricane would approach the coast of the Carolinas on Saturday morning as a major storm, of Category 3 or upward on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity.

Read said the storm will skirt south Florida but added that after the Carolinas, the New England region of the East Coast could also be at particular risk.

"We're going to potentially see tropical storm-force conditions, very hazardous beach conditions," Fugate said, adding evacuations of coastal areas could be needed.

Irene, the first hurricane of the busy 2011 Atlantic season, looks set to be the first hurricane to hit the United States since Ike pounded the Texas coast in 2008.

At 11 a.m. (1500 GMT), Irene had top winds of 100 miles per hour and was 70 miles south of Grand Turk Island in the Turks and Caicos and 50 miles north northwest of Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.

Hurricane force winds extended outward up to 50 miles from Irene's center and tropical storm force winds extended out up to 205 miles, the NHC said.

(Additional reporting by Jane Sutton and Tom Brown in Miami, Reuters in San Juan: Ben Berkowitz in New York; Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Philip Barbara)

View the original article here