Katia gaining strength, could become a hurricane

AP – 52 mins ago

MIAMI (AP) — Tropical Storm Katia (KAH'-tee-yah) is getting stronger in the mid-Atlantic and could become a hurricane later in the day.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami says the storm is still far out to sea and it's too early to say if will threaten for any land area.

Katia's maximum sustained winds were near 65 mph (100 kph) early Wednesday, short of the hurricane threshold of 74 mph. It's expected to keep strengthening and could become a major hurricane this weekend.

Katia is centered about 985 miles (1,585 kilometers) west of the southernmost Cape Verde Islands and moving west-northwest near 21 mph (33 kph).

The storm's name replaces Katrina in the rotating storm roster because of the catastrophic damage from the 2005 storm that devastated New Orleans and the coast.

http://news.yahoo.com/katia-gaining-strength-could-become-hurricane-085323954.html

Helicopters rush food, water to cut-off Vt. towns

By JOHN CURRAN - Associated Press | AP – 7 hrs ago

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  Adirondack Explorer, Tom Woodman - Roaring Brook undermined a section of Route 73 near the Ausable Club and has changed course to flow where the highway once ran, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2011 in Keene, NY. Mountain …more

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NEWFANE, Vt. (AP) — National Guard helicopters rushed food and water Tuesday to a dozen cut-off Vermont towns after the rainy remnants of Hurricane Irene washed out roads and bridges in a deluge that took many people in the landlocked New England state by surprise.

"As soon as we can get help, we need help," Liam McKinley said by cellphone from a mountain above flood-stricken Rochester, Vt.

Up to 11 inches of rain from the weekend storm turned placid streams into churning, brown torrents that knocked homes off their foundations, flattened trees and took giant bites out of the asphalt across the countryside. At least three people died in Vermont.

"I think that people are still a little shell-shocked right now. There's just a lot of disbelief on people's faces. It came through so quickly, and there's so much damage," Gail Devine, director of the Woodstock Recreation Center, said as volunteers moved furniture out of the flooded basement and shoveled out thick mud that filled the center's two swimming pools.

As crews raced to repair the roads, the National Guard began flying in supplies to the towns of Cavendish, Granville, Hancock, Killington-Mendon, Marlboro, Pittsfield, Plymouth, Rochester, Stockbridge, Strafford, Stratton and Wardsboro. The Guard also used heavy-duty vehicles to bring relief to flood-stricken communities still reachable by road.

The cut-off towns ranged in population from under 200 (Stratton) to nearly 1,400 (Cavendish).

"If it's a life-and-death situation, where someone needs to be Medevac-ed or taken to a hospital, we would get a helicopter there to airlift them out, if we could get close to them. A lot of these areas are mountainous areas where there may not be a place to land," said Mark Bosma, a spokesman for Vermont Emergency Management.

There were no immediate reports of anyone in dire condition being rescued by helicopter.

But it took a relay operation involving two ambulances and an all-terrain vehicle to take a Killington woman in respiratory distress to a hospital in Rutland, about 13 miles away, after floodwaters severed the road between the two communities, Rutland Regional Medical Center President Tom Hubner said. The patient, whose name was not released, was doing fine, he said.

In Rochester, where telephones were out and damage was severe, people could be seen from helicopters standing in line outside a grocery store. McKinley said the town's restaurants and a supermarket were giving food away rather than let it spoil, and townspeople were helping each other.

"We've been fine so far. The worst part is not being able to communicate with the rest of the state and know when people are coming in," he said.

He said government agencies did a good job of warning people about the storm. "But here in Vermont, I think we just didn't expect it and didn't prepare for it," he said. "I thought, how could it happen here?"

Wendy Pratt, another of the few townspeople able to communicate with the outside world, posted an update on Facebook using a generator and a satellite Internet connection. She sketched a picture of both devastation and New England neighborliness.

"People have lost their homes, their belongings, businesses ... the cemetery was flooded and caskets were lost down the river. So many areas of complete devastation," Pratt wrote. "In town there is no cell service or internet service - all phones in town are out. We had a big town meeting at the church at 4 this afternoon to get any updates."

"Mac's opened up at 5 and gave perishables away to anyone who came," she added. "The Huntington House put on a big, free community dinner tonight."

Access to Rochester and Stratton by road was restored later in the day, officials said.

All together, the storm has been blamed for at least 44 deaths in 13 states. More than 2.5 million people from North Carolina to Maine were still without electricity Tuesday, three days after the hurricane churned up the Eastern Seaboard.

While all eyes were on the coast as Irene swirled northward, some of the worst destruction took place well inland, away from the storm's most punishing winds. In Vermont, Gov. Peter Shumlin called it the worst flooding in a century. Small towns in upstate New York — especially in the Catskills and the Adirondacks — were also besieged by floodwaters.

In Pittsfield, Vt., newlyweds Marc Leibowitz and Janina Stegmeyer of New York City were stranded Sunday along with members of the wedding party and dozens of their guests after floodwaters swamped the couple's honeymoon cottage. The honeymooners narrowly escaped in a four-wheel-drive rental car just before a bridge behind them collapsed.

More than a dozen of the 60 or so guests were airlifted out by private helicopters on Tuesday.

Michael Ricci of Woodstock, Vt., spent the day clearing debris from his backyard along the Ottauquechee River. What had been a meticulously mowed, sloping grass lawn and gorgeous flower beds was now a muddy expanse littered with debris, including wooden boards, propane tanks and a deer hunting target.

"The things we saw go down the river were just incredible," he said. "Sheds, picnic tables, propane tanks, furnaces, refrigerators. We weren't prepared for that. We had prepared for wind and what we ended up with was more water than I could possibly, possibly have imagined." He said the water in the yard was almost up to the house, or about 15 to 20 feet above normal.

He added: "The force of it was beyond our comprehension."

Vermont emergency officials and the National Weather Service warned before the storm about the potential for heavy rain and flooding. On Thursday, Shumlin recommended stocking up on enough food, water and other supplies to last three days.

On Tuesday, the governor defended his state's decision not to undertake extensive evacuations before the storm arrived, noting that it was too hard to predict which communities in a rugged place like Vermont would get hit.

"You'd have to evacuate the entire state," he said.

Gerald and Evangeline Monroe of Quechee, Vt., agreed with the governor and said they had no complaints about the way authorities handled the crisis.

Gerald Monroe noted that some homes on one side of the river through his town were damaged, while those on the opposite banks 100 yards away were unscathed.

His wife said city-dwellers may see a weather report and know it applies to their entire metropolitan area. "But when you live in Vermont, there are lots of little microclimates and every village is different." she said. "I think our authorities were fine."

Approximately 260 roads in Vermont were closed because of storm damage, along with about 30 highway bridges. Vermont Deputy Transportation Secretary Sue Minter said the infrastructure damage was in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Relief supplies arrived at Vermont's National Guard headquarters early Tuesday in a convoy of 30 trucks from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Accompanied by Shumlin, FEMA administrator Craig Fugate toured the state by helicopter Tuesday to survey the damage.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, where Irene blew ashore along the Outer Banks on Saturday before heading for New York and New England, Gov. Beverly Perdue said the hurricane destroyed more than 1,100 homes and caused at least $70 million in damage.

Airlines said it would be days before the thousands of passengers stranded by Irene find their way home. Amtrak service was still out Tuesday between Philadelphia and New York because of flooding in Trenton. Commuter train service between New Jersey and New York City resumed Tuesday, except for one line that was still dealing with flooding.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said at news conference in North Carolina that she was unaware of anything federal authorities should have done differently in Vermont. She said FEMA and its state counterpart worked closely together, and she noted that after the state agency operations center got flooded out, it moved into FEMA's quarters.

William "Breck" Bowden, an expert on Vermont's watershed at the University of Vermont, attributed the disaster to a combination of factors: The soil was wet, Vermont's steep hills quickly fed the rainfall into streams, and the storm dumped a huge amount of water.

"There was plenty of warning being given about the coming storm by the meteorological community and the news media," he said. "The real issues are the enormous damage to our infrastructure. That's nothing an evacuation could have done anything about."

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Holly Ramer in Woodstock, Vt., Wilson Ring and Dave Gram in Montpelier, and Michael Gormley in Albany, N.Y.

http://news.yahoo.com/helicopters-rush-food-water-cut-off-vt-towns-212020804.html

After hurricane, New Yorkers hardly miss a beat

By COLLEEN LONG - Associated Press,DAVID B. CARUSO - Associated Press | AP – Mon, Aug 29, 2011

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NEW YORK (AP) — When the clouds parted, Wall Street wasn't swamped. Coney Island's world-famous Cyclone roller coaster was still standing. The Empire State Building hadn't lost a single window.

And New Yorkers hardly missed a beat after Irene — a hurricane demoted to a tropical storm just before it made it to the big city — swept through Sunday morning.

Just hours after an all-night, window-rattling drenching from the storm, people were back on the streets, jogging, milling around Times Square, walking dogs and surveying the damage, which consisted mostly of downed trees, power outages and neighborhood flooding.

The subway system, shut down Saturday because of the risk of flooding, was still out of service, and trains probably won't be running in time for the Monday morning commute, meaning it could be a hellish start of the work week for millions of New Yorkers.

But for a while at least, "it was a fun little adventure," said Zander Lassen, who spent the night at a boathouse in lower Manhattan babysitting beached sailboats.

To be sure, there were terrifying moments: Firefighters on Staten Island rescued dozens of people trapped by floodwaters. On the Queens seashore, part of a pier collapsed and two summer bungalows were reduced to piles of timber.

City officials worried saltwater would swamp lower Manhattan and damage the underground power lines that serve Wall Street, crippling the nation's financial system. But that didn't happen. The main stock exchanges were set to open as scheduled Monday.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said there were no confirmed deaths or serious injuries. The evacuation order that covered 370,000 people across the city was lifted at 3 p.m.

As for the shutdown of the city's transit system, the mayor said in his typically blasé way: "Tough commute tomorrow, but we have tough commutes all the time."

To get the subways running again, inspectors will walk all 800 miles of track, looking for damage to rails, switches and power sources, the transit agency said. Then they will test the tracks by running trains through. Water will also have to be pumped from train yards and other spots.

Barbara and Gerald Karikari, lawyers who live in Brooklyn, said that if the trains aren't running, they will have no choice but to drive into Manhattan.

"The Brooklyn Bridge is going to be a nightmare, I'm sure," Barbara Karikari said. "Our bigger problem is, will the baby sitter be able to get here?"

Irene — New York City's biggest brush with tropical weather since Hurricane Gloria in 1985 — weakened to a tropical storm just before blowing ashore at Brooklyn's Coney Island around 9 a.m. It was still a big storm with winds up 65 mph, but the water did not rise as high as feared, and it receded quickly.

Bob Kern, a lawyer, waited out the storm in his 26th-floor apartment in Battery Park City.

"I was here for 9/11, and a good friend of mine just died this week," he said. "So I guess I just figured what will be will be. I've been through a lot, so I thought, 'What else can be thrown at me?'"

He added, "I've been surprised how many people are walking around already. I think people are already getting back to it. I'm really, really glad and grateful things are OK."

While power was out in about 69,000 homes and businesses around the city, streets that had been all but deserted were bustling again by late afternoon. Tourists held hands and wandered through Times Square. In Brooklyn, residents came outside and used downed tree branches to clear debris from blocked sewer grates.

While many New Yorkers just seemed to pick up and go on with their Sundays, some were frustrated their power was out or were steamed about being ordered to evacuate.

"We left, and nothing happened," said a miffed Denise Gomez, as she unloaded groceries and bags from the trunk of her car in Brooklyn. "We knew it wasn't going to be anything, but we were bullied into leaving."

The city's major landmarks were untouched. The Sept. 11 memorial in lower Manhattan didn't suffer any significant flooding, and pieces of steel and other artifacts gathered for a planned museum were safe and dry.

And a hurricane proved no match for the Cyclone, the rattling, wooden roller coaster that opened on Coney Island in 1927 and is 85 feet high. It, too, came through unscathed.

Nearby in Brighton Beach, a patch of blue sky peeked through.

"Nature is freaky, isn't it?" said Lisa Taub.

Irene also brought serious flooding to New York's Long Island and chewed away the shoreline at some popular beaches on the last week of the summer season.

Fred Fiedler cleared downed tree limbs in Southold, N.Y., a beach town near the northeastern tip of Long Island where his home and many others lost power.

"It could've been a lot worse," the 71-year-old Fiedler said. "This is about the sixth hurricane that I've gone through in my lifetime. I hope it's the last."

___(equals)

Associated Press writers Meghan Barr in Southold, N.Y., and Tom Hays, Larry Neumeister, Beth Fouhy, Samantha Gross, Jennifer Peltz, Verena Dobnik, Tom Hays, and Deepti Hajela in New York City contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/hurricane-yorkers-hardly-miss-beat-202924076.html

State-by-state look at Irene dangers, damage

By The Associated Press | AP – Mon, Aug 29, 2011

Irene, the hurricane that weakened to a tropical storm, thrashed the East Coast, knocking out power to millions of homes and businesses, destroying piers and killing at least 38 people in 11 states. Here's a state-by-state glance on how it's affected states along the Eastern seaboard:

CONNECTICUT

__ The storm hit Connecticut on Sunday with 60 mph winds and drenching rain, destroying dozens of homes along the shoreline.

__ More than 674,000 utility customers still were without electricity Monday afternoon. At the peak out of the outages Sunday, about 775,000 customers were without electricity.

__ Connecticut tax officials are extending some business tax filing deadlines by a week — from Aug. 31 to Sept. 7 — because of Tropical Storm Irene.

DELAWARE

__ Two men who decided to sprint through hurricane at peak of the storm were found dead Monday in a waterway in a northern town.

__ About 7,600 homes and businesses without power as of late Monday afternoon.

__ Apparent tornado damages 15 structures near Lewes. No injuries reported.

__ Residents of a small coastal community were left isolated from their homes after an access road through Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in southern Delaware was washed out.

__ Governor says worst of Irene passed Sunday; he went on a helicopter tour of affected areas.

__ 16,000 chickens died when a Kent County poultry house was flooded during the storm.

FLORIDA

__ Hurricane kicked up heavy waves killing a 55-year-old surfer; a New Jersey tourist, also died in rough surf.

MAINE

__ Wind, heavy rains reached the state Sunday; the wind died down ended Monday.

__ More than 300,000 customers were without power at some point during storm; around 190,000 outages remained Monday afternoon.

__ Winds reached 49 mph on land, 8-9 inches of rain in western areas of state resulting in flash floods.

__ 200 roads and 12 bridges closed by floods or fallen trees.

__ Gov. Paul LePage toured Carrabassett Valley and Rumford areas of western Maine by helicopter to survey highway and bridge damage.

MARYLAND

Gov. Martin O'Malley says about 443,000 electricity customers remained without power Monday afternoon.

__ Up to 12 inches of rain fell on Ocean City.

__ Maryland Transit Administration restored service Sunday after suspending it.

MASSACHUSETTS

__ Rivers that overflowed their banks in Massachusetts because of Tropical Storm Irene washed out roads, swamped cornfields and dislodged a covered bridge.

__ More than 400,000 customers in the state remained without electricity at midday Monday.

__ Public transportation in Boston reopened Monday morning after being shut down for most of the day Sunday. Logan International Airport is also back to normal.

__ Gov. Deval Patrick toured hard-hit areas Monday by ground and air.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

__ Drenching rain and high winds reached state Sunday afternoon.

__ 175,000 homes and businesses were without power at the peak of the storm, 113,000 outages by Monday.

__ 200 local roads and 42 state roads closed from flooding and downed trees.

__ 250 people used nearly two dozen shelters, which had a capacity of 4,000 people.

NEW JERSEY

__ Irene hit at Little Egg Inlet north of Atlantic City early Sunday, only the third to make landfall in the state in the last 200 years.

__ About 600,000 homes and businesses were without power Monday afternoon, down from over 900,000.

__ Atlantic City casinos resume operations after rare shutdown.

__ Floodwaters remained on tracks in Trenton, N.J. on Monday, preventing Amtrak service between Boston and Philadelphia.

__Beaches on state's longest barrier island, Long Beach island, found to have lost 4 to 5 feet of height and up to 150 feet of width.

NEW YORK

__ Irene made landfall Sunday near Coney Island in New York City.

__ Massive rains upstate swelled waterways, shredding roads, knocking out bridges and tearing buildings off foundations in several counties.

__ Officials rescued 191 people.

__ At its peak, 945,000 homes and businesses statewide lost power, about half on Long Island. By Monday afternoon, 808,000 were still without power.

__ New York's major airports reopened Monday.

__ New York City's public transit system, the nation's biggest, was shut down until at least Monday.

__ Some traders at the New York Stock Exchange slept above the trading floor to be there for Monday's opening bell. It rang on time at exactly 9:30.

NORTH CAROLINA

__ The storm that made landfall at Cape Lookout on Saturday and then steamed up the East Coast.

__ Overall there were about 239,000 outages across eastern North Carolina late Monday.

__Local officials reported a 13-foot surge from Pamlico Sound into Beaufort County.

__ Nearly 1,900 prisoners evacuated from three coastal prisons.

__ Gov. Beverly Perdue and other officials offered assurance that the state's beaches, North Carolina's top tourism destination, are ready for Labor Day.

PENNSYLVANIA

__ Fears of flooding by the Delaware River in eastern Pennsylvania after it crested at just more than 25 feet and stayed within its banks.

__ The number of customers without power fell to 443,000 Monday from 706,000 the day before

__ Public transit in Philadelphia was up and running, save for a few regional trains.

RHODE ISLAND

__ Irene made landfall Sunday as a tropical storm.

__ As many as 340,000 of the state's electrical customers lost power after Irene. The number was down to 276,328 Monday evening.

__ Rhode Island health officials issued a boil-water advisory for about 1,000 residents statewide after several water systems lost pressure due to electricity outages caused by Irene.

SOUTH CAROLINA

__ Beach erosion reported at high tide Friday evening on Edisto Island and Folly Beach.

__ About 5,000 customers lost power from storms in Irene's outer bands.

__ Irene moved away from the state Saturday morning.

VERMONT

__ Gov. Peter Shumlin says flooding from Irene is the worst in the state in a century.

— Whole communities are cut off, almost 50,000 customers are without power, and hundreds of roads are closed.

__ At least a dozen bridges have washed away.

__ The Vermont State Hospital was evacuated after flood waters threatened the facility in Waterbury.

VIRGINIA

__ The storm battered two-thirds of Virginia during its weekend assault on the region.

__ About 514,320 customers remained without power Monday afternoon, most in the Richmond area.

__ Suffolk received 11 inches of rain, and other localities east of Interstate 95 received about 5-10 inches.

__ Hampton Roads area saw near-record storm surge that could lead to flooding. Gov. Bob McDonnell and other officials took an aerial tour of the area.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

__ About 7,700 homes and businesses without power.

__ About 200 trees were down around the city.

__ Washington National Cathedral officials say Hurricane Irene has not worsened any damage from last week's earthquake that caused significant damage at the church.

__ Approach of hurricane forced postponement of Sunday's dedication of Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.

__ Public transit in nation's capital never shut down.

http://news.yahoo.com/state-state-look-irene-dangers-damage-184054882.html

Tropical Storm Katia gathers momentum in Atlantic

AP – 4 hrs ago

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  Getty Images - ATLANTIC OCEAN - AUGUST 30: In this satellite Images from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Tropical Storm Katia (R) is seen August 30, 2011 forming in the Atlantic …more

MIAMI (AP) — Tropical Storm Katia is racing west-northwest across the Atlantic and forecasters say it's likely to become a hurricane on Wednesday.

Katia (KAH'-tee-yah) had maximum sustained winds late Tuesday of 60 mph (97 kph).

Hurricane specialist Michael Brennan said Tuesday morning that Katia could affect the Caribbean, but that it was too early to tell if it would hit the U.S.

Katia is centered about 885 miles west of the southernmost Cape Verde Islands and is moving at 22 mph (35 kph).

The storm's name replaces Katrina in the rotating storm roster because of the catastrophic damage from the 2005 storm.

http://news.yahoo.com/tropical-storm-katia-gathers-momentum-atlantic-212404313.html

Videos show upstate New York, Vermont Irene flooding

By Liz Goodwin | The Lookout – 15 hrs ago

Hurricane Irene failed to be the apocalyptic, big-city disaster scenario that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had spelled out late last week, but the storm still managed to leave 5 million homes and businesses without power and dozens dead.

The storm caused some of the worst flooding in a century in Vermont, and also submerged small upstate New York towns that are just now able to take stock of the damage.

This ABC News report, below, shows the frightening flooding in New York and Vermont--including dramatic footage of a covered bridge washing out near Rockingham, Vermont:

A North Carolina road was completely washed out by the storm. You can see flood waters bisecting Highway 12, which connects Hatteras and Ocracoke islands to the mainland, in the video below. The collapse left more than 2,000 people on the islands stranded from the North Carolina mainland. Six deaths have been reported in the state, most from falling trees.

A Philadelphia computer engineer set up a webcam to monitor the level of water rising in his townhouse after he evacuated. He adopted a positive attitude about the severe flooding that he watched from safety. "It's stuff--it can be replaced," he said.

Another video shows emergency officials rescuing an elderly couple from a flooded car in Mount Holly, Vermont. And this one shows a Fox reporter in Ocean City, Maryland getting pelted with foul-smelling sea foam, which most likely contained raw sewage.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/videos-show-upstate-york-vermont-irene-flooding-153510538.html

Vermont, New Jersey flooded as Irene spares NYC

By Christine Kearney and Scott Malone | Reuters – 6 hrs ago

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FAIRFIELD, N.J./BRATTLEBORO, Vermont (Reuters) - New Jersey and Vermont struggled with their worst flooding in decades on Monday, a day after Hurricane Irene slammed an already soaked U.S. Northeast with torrential rain, dragging away homes and submerging neighborhoods underwater.

The massive storm churned up the U.S. East Coast over the weekend killing 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.

Spared from Irene's worst fury, New York City went back to work on Monday despite a partially crippled mass transit system and power outages that left 100,000 customers in the metropolitan area and nearly 1 million in the state without electricity.

Overall, some 5.1 million homes and businesses were still without power from North Carolina to Maine, and utilities said it could take days to restore electricity in more accessible areas and weeks in the hardest-hit regions.

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.

In Fairfield, New Jersey, about 20 homes near the Passaic River were submerged, some in at least five feet of water. Some people waded chest high or rode canoes down the street, while others just sat and witnessed the flood from their stoops.

"This is the worst flood we have ever had," said Mike Chiafulio, 52, who could only watch as the water continued to rise around his mother's house. He said the flooding exceeding what he remembered from notable floods in 1968 and 1984.

The leafy suburb of Maplewood some 20 miles west of New York City was jarred by the sound of whirring generators, sirens and pumps emptying water from flooded houses.

Hundreds of thousands of people in New Jersey could be without electricity, water supplies or gas for days to come, their comfortable towns strewn with felled trees and branches blocking main roadways.

"We've had major rains before but we've never had flooding like this," said Ben Cohen, a retired judge who lives in Maplewood. "I can only vouch for the last 38 years but nothing even can come close to this."

In the town of Whippany, firefighters trained in swift water rescue pulled two youths out of the raging Whippany River, Deputy Fire Chief Randy Polo said.

Dumped from a raft at a man-made waterfall in the river, one teen was clinging to a log and the other to a broken tree limb in the thundering current, Polo said. The rescue took about an hour, he said.

"They were grateful, to say the least," Polo said.

OBAMA PLEDGES AID

"It's going to take time to recover from a storm of this magnitude," President Barack Obama told reporters in Washington. "The effects are still being felt across much of the country, including in New England and states like Vermont where there's been an enormous amount of flooding.

"I'm going to make sure that FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and other agencies are doing everything in their power to help people on the ground."

Vermont officials called it the state's worst flooding since 1927.

Air travel at New York City's three major area airports slowly resumed service, and financial markets operated normally, although volumes were low.

More than 12,000 East Coast flights were canceled and it could take three days to restore normal service, the industry group Air Transport Association said.

New York City subways returned to service, but many commuter lines to the city and national train carrier Amtrak were disrupted due to tracks that were flooded or blocked with fallen trees and debris.

While Irene failed to produce the devastation many had expected when New York City preemptively ordered unprecedented evacuations and a shutdown of its mass transit system on Saturday, it still left hundreds of thousands of homeowners with flood damage, especially in New Jersey and Vermont.

"I keep being somewhat disappointed by some of the national press that think because Manhattan wasn't hit, everything is fine. We're not Manhattan, but we have human lives here in Vermont, too," Governor Peter Shumlin said after surveying washed out roads and bridges and homes bobbing in the water.

Shumlin visited the Whetstone Studio for the Arts in Brattleboro, an artsy community of 12,000 along the Connecticut River. Gushing water ate away at the building and left its second floor dangling precariously over the flood.

MASSIVE RAINFALL

Some 5 to 15 inches of rain fell over a 24- to 36-hour period in northeastern states, said David Vallee, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service, creating moderate to major flooding in parts of eastern New York state, the Connecticut River valley and much of northern New Hampshire and Vermont.

Fairfield, New Jersey, home to more than 7,000 people, was in danger of becoming an island as flooding from the Passaic River was expected to surpass that of a memorable flood in 1984, Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura said.

"We are surrounded already," said Gail Dupas, 36, who fled to a hotel after floodwaters on her street reached neck deep. "It's devastating. You have to grab what you can. Anything that's irreplaceable."

Alex Adams, 35, looked relieved as a Maplewood fire truck arrived at his house to pump out more than two feet of water that accumulated in his basement.

"It obliterated everything but we were most concerned about getting electrocuted," Adams said.

"My wife and I were in there pulling out everything when we realized water was over the outlets."

Even the mega wealthy were inconvenienced by Irene. Hedge fund magnate David Tepper was forced from his plush office in Millburn, New Jersey, as the fund's main offices lost power. Tepper is founder of hedge fund Appaloosa Management LP.

The costly cleanup will also further strain budgets of state and local governments, where economies have not recovered from the recession.

"It's a hit but not a fatal hit," said Joseph Seneca, a professor at Rutgers University's Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. "The ability of states to respond (to the hurricane) is more constrained," Seneca said.

(Reporting by Christine Kearney in Fairfield, New Jersey; Scott Malone in Brattleboro, Vermont; Karen Pierog in Chicago; Svea Herbst-Bayliss, Toni Clarke and Lauren Keiper in Boston; Ben Berkowitz, Josh Schneyer and Edith Honan in New York; Tabassum Zakaria and Jeff Mason in Washington; David Warner in Philadelphia; Matthew Goldstein in Millburn, New Jersey; Grant McCool in Maplewood, New Jersey; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Eric Beech and Todd Eastham)

http://news.yahoo.com/vermont-jersey-flooded-irene-spares-nyc-001406826.html