Tropical Storm Irene: New York City Appears To Escape The Worst As Irene Moves On

By SAMANTHA GROSS and MITCH WEISS, Associated Press

NEW YORK -- Tropical Storm Irene unleashed furious wind and rain on New York on Sunday and sent seawater surging into the Manhattan streets. But the city appeared to escape the worst fears of urban disaster - vast power outages, hurricane-shattered skyscraper windows and severe flooding.

A foot of water rushed over the wall of a marina in front of the New York Mercantile Exchange, where gold and oil are traded, and floodwater lapped at the wheel wells of yellow cabs. As the storm marched into New England, though, authorities in its wake cautiously expressed relief.

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New York City's biggest power company, Consolidated Edison, said it was optimistic it would not have to cut electricity to save its equipment. The Sept. 11 museum, a centerpiece of the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, said on Twitter that none of its memorial trees were lost.

And Irene made landfall as a tropical storm with 65 mph winds, not the 100-mph hurricane that had churned up the East Coast and dumped a foot of water or more on less populated areas in the South.

"Just another storm," said Scott Beller, who was at a Lowe's store in the Long Island hamlet of Centereach, looking for a generator because his power was out.

Irene weakened to winds of 60 mph, well below the 74 mph dividing line between a hurricane and tropical storm. The system was still massive and powerful, forming a figure six that covered the Northeast. It was moving twice as fast as the day before.

The storm killed at least 14 people and left 4 million homes and businesses without power. It unloaded more than a foot of water on North Carolina and spun off tornadoes in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

And even after the storm passes in the Northeast, the danger will persist. Rivers could crest after the skies the clear, and the ground in most of the region is saturated from a summer of persistent rain.

But from North Carolina to New Jersey, the storm appeared to have fallen well short of the doomsday predictions. Across the Eastern Seaboard, at least 2.3 million people were given orders to evacuate, though it was not clear how many obeyed them.

Max Mayfield, former director of the National Hurricane Center, said the storm wasn't just a lot of hype with little fury. He praised authorities, from meteorologists to emergency managers at all levels, for taking the threat seriously.

"They knew they had to get people out early," Mayfield said. "I think absolutely lives were saved."

In Virginia Beach, the city posted on Twitter late Saturday that initial reports were promising, with the resort area suffering minimal damage. Ocean City, Md., Mayor Rick Meehan posted wind readings and reported: "Scattered power outages. No reports of major damage!"

Charlie Koetzle was up at 4 a.m. on Ocean City's boardwalk. Asked about damage, he mentioned a sign that blew down.

"The beach is still here, and there is lots of it," he said. "I don't think it was as bad as they said it was going to be."

Under its first hurricane warning in a quarter-century, the nation's largest city had taken extensive precautions. There were sandbags on Wall Street, tarps over subway grates and plywood on storefront windows. The subway stopped rolling. Broadway and baseball were canceled.

John F. Kennedy International Airport recorded a tropical storm-force wind gust of 58 mph. Kennedy, where on a normal day tens of thousands of passengers would be arriving from points around the world, was quiet. So were LaGuardia and Newark airports. So was Grand Central Terminal, where the great hall was cleared out entirely. Part of the Holland Tunnel was closed.

And 370,000 people in the city had been ordered to move to safer ground, although they appeared in great numbers to have stayed put. A storm surge of at least 3 1/2 feet was recorded in New York Harbor, and water pressed into Manhattan from three sides ? the harbor, the Hudson River and the East River.

"You could see newspaper stands floating down the street," said Scott Baxter, a hotel doorman in the SoHo neighborhood.

New York firefighters made dozens of water rescues, including three babies, and said they were searching bungalows that had floated down the street in parts of Queens. The wind and rain were expected to diminish by afternoon.

The National Hurricane Center said the center of the huge storm reached land near Little Egg Inlet, N.J., at 5:35 a.m. The eye previously reached land Saturday in North Carolina before returning to the Atlantic, tracing the East Coast shoreline.

Irene caused flooding from North Carolina to Delaware, both from the 7-foot waves it pushed into the coast and from heavy rain. Eastern North Carolina got 10 to 14 inches of rain. Virginia's Hampton Roads area was drenched with at least 9 inches, 16 in some spots.

More than 1 million homes and businesses lost power in Virginia alone. Emergency crews around the region prepared to head out at daybreak to assess the damage, though with some roads impassable and rivers still rising, it could take days.

Some held out optimism that their communities had suffered less damage than they had feared.

In North Carolina, where at least five people were killed and TV footage showed downed trees and power lines, Gov. Beverly Perdue said some areas were unreachable.

"Folks are cut off in parts of North Carolina, and obviously we're not going to get anybody to do an assessment until it's safe," she said.

A falling tree also killed one person in Maryland. A surfer and another beachgoer in Florida were killed in heavy waves caused by the storm.

A nuclear reactor at Maryland's Calvert Cliffs went offline automatically when a large piece of aluminum siding blew off and hit the facility's main transformer late Saturday night. An "unusual event" was declared, the lowest of four emergency classifications by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but Constellation Energy Nuclear Group spokesman Mark Sullivan said the facility and all employees were safe.

Near Callway, Md., about 30 families were warned that a dam could spill over, causing significant flooding, and that they should either leave their homes or stay upstairs. St. Mary's County spokeswoman Sue Sabo said the dam was not in danger of breaching.

Irene raked the Caribbean last week and made its first landfall Saturday near Cape Lookout, N.C., at the southern end of the Outer Banks.

Of the 14 deaths, at least nine were caused by falling trees or car crashes into trees. The victims included five in North Carolina, four in Virginia, one each in Maryland, New Jersey and Connecticut, and two in rough surf in Florida.

Irene was the first hurricane to make landfall in the continental United States since 2008, and came almost six years to the day after Katrina ravaged New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005. Experts said that probably no other hurricane in American history had threatened as many people.

Airlines said 9,000 flights were canceled, including 3,000 on Saturday. The number of passengers affected could easily be millions because so many flights make connections on the East Coast.

The storm arrived in Washington just days after an earthquake damaged some of the capital's most famous structures, including the Washington Monument. Irene could test Washington's ability to protect its national treasures and its poor.

Near the epicenter of the quake, in Mineral, Va., trees were down, but the power stayed on.

"I was telling people, `All I can say is we all better go to church on Sunday,'" Mayor Pam Harlowe said. "But unfortunately a bunch of them are closed."

At the East Coast cleans up, it can't afford to get too comfortable. Off the coast of Africa is a batch of clouds that computer models say will probably threaten the East Coast 10 days from now, Mayfield said. The hurricane center gave it a 40 percent chance of becoming a named storm over the next two days.

"Folks on the East Coast are going to get very nervous again," Mayfield said.

___

Weiss reported from Nags Head, N.C. Associated Press writers Christine Armario in Miami; Jessica Gresko in Ocean City, Md.; Brock Vergakis in Virginia Beach, Va.; Marc Levy in Chester, Pa.; Seth Borenstein in Washington; and Samantha Bomkamp, Verena Dobnik, Jonathan Fahey, Beth Fouhy, Tom Hays, Colleen Long and Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this report.

FEMA Praised By Governors For Storm Response

HuffPost's Amanda Terkel reports:

WASHINGTON -- Governors of both parties are praising the federal response to Hurricane Irene, giving a much-needed vote of confidence to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which has been struggling to regain its good name after its response to Hurricane Katrina.

When asked by ABC's "This Week" host Jake Tappper whether there's anything that New Jersey needs from the federal government that it hasn't been getting, Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) replied, "Not at this point."

More here.

Rhode Island Town Claims Tornado Touched Down In Neighborhood

North Kingstown Patch reports:

Neighbors on North Quidnessett Road are claiming a tornado touched down and swept through the area at about 8:30 a.m.

"We heard it and we knew it was really heavy winds," said Sarah Rebello. "We looked outside and saw all the trees fall at the same time."

More here.

Irene Kills Baby Turtles By The Hundreds

FloridaToday.com reports:

The beaches survived but baby sea turtles died by the hundreds.Hurricane Irene's surf chipped away at Brevard County beaches, unearthed and killed unhatched and just-hatched endangered sea turtles or kept hatchlings from making their way into the ocean.

Read the story here.

800,000 Without Power, Nearly 4,000 in Shelters In Maryland

Reistertown Patch reports:

More than 800,000 Maryland residents were without power Sunday, almost 4,000 fled to shelters and two people were killed in a lashing overnight by Hurricane Irene, the Maryland Emergency Management Agency said.

Read the full story here.

Up To $400 Million In Insured Losses In Carolinas

Reuters reports:

Hurricane Irene caused between $200 million and $400 million in insured losses in the Carolinas, catastrophe modeling company EQECAT said on Sunday, suggesting the storm may have been far less severe than the insurance industry feared.

Read more here.

WATCH: Tranquil Brook Becomes Raging River In New York State

HuffPost's Tom Zeller reports:

What is ordinarily a tranquil brook at the foot of our property in Putnam County has become a raging river as Irene passes over. The bridge that spans the creek, and connects us to the road, has been inundated:

Central Hudson, the local utility, reports about 86,000 customers without power, but we remain illuminated -- so far.

Man Wanted In Multiple Hurricane Homicides

From NBC Philadelphia:

In the midst of Hurricane Irene bearing down on the east coast, an active duty U.S. soldier may have killed as many as three people from Virginia to Bucks County, Pa., also shooting a local police officer.

Read more here.

Live Wires In The Water Around Hoboken, NJ

HuffPost's Hoboken Patch reports:

Flood waters rose as high as five feet in the western part of town and piers overflowed in uptown Hoboken on Sunday morning, as the worst of the storm hit as the Hudson was at high tide around 8 a.m.

Mayor Dawn Zimmer also warned residents that there are wires in the water at Fifth and Jefferson Streets, Sixth and Garden Streets, 703 Park Ave. and 800 Madison St. Walking in the water when there are wires down could cause electrocution, Zimmer said, and residents are urged to stay inside.

Around 9 a.m., the Hudson River as almost at the edge, due to excessive rain and high tide. Uptown piers have been flooded, according to emergency personnel.

More here.

WATCH: New Jersey Region Flooded

East Windsor Patch reports, "Hightstown Borough is in a state of emergency and under a water advisory, according to Fire Chief Larry Van Kirk."

More here.

WATCH:

Homes Damaged, Roads Closed In New Jersey

Westfield Patch reports:

Four homes have been damaged and 25-percent of Westfield's roads are closed due to Hurricane Irene.

Fire Chief Dan Kelly said that four homes had trees or tree limbs fall on them causing structural damage to the home. In addition, downed trees and water in the road have closed a quarter of the town's roads.

Read more here.

Cory Booker Calls For Infrastructure Investment

HuffPost's Amanda Terkel reports:

On NBC's "Meet the Press," Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker (D) called for more infrastructure investment, saying many of the post-Irene problems the city is seeing could have been avoided or lessened if its system was more up-to-date:

I'm very concerned in our country that we have not been investing in infrastructure like we need to. We're seeing in the city of Newark lots of flooding and problems because our infrastructure is getting very aged, and we haven't had the kind of investment, or the resources to put the investment into it, to keep our infrastructure strong and safe. And I know this is a problem from around the country. I've talked to many mayors. We need to understand that investment in infrastructure is actually going to save us money over the long term, it's going to keep people safe, and it's actually going to help our economy as well.

PHOTOS: NYC Streets Hit By Storm

Engadget's Richard Lai provides the following images from the streets of New York City:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/28/tropical-storm-irene-nyc-_n_939600.html

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