Selasa, 30 Agustus 2011

Irene's toll jumps to 40; Vt. towns battle floods

Irene's toll jumps to 40; Vt. towns battle floods

By JENNIFER PELTZ - Associated Press,WILSON RING - Associated Press | AP – 3 hrs ago

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — The full measure of Hurricane Irene's fury came into focus Monday as the death toll jumped to 40, New England towns battled epic floods and millions faced the dispiriting prospect of several days without electricity.

From North Carolina to Maine, communities cleaned up and took stock of the uneven and hard-to-predict costs of a storm that spared the nation's biggest city a nightmare scenario, only to deliver a historic wallop to towns well inland.

In New York City, where people had braced for a disaster-movie scene of water swirling around skyscrapers, the subways and buses were up and running again in time for the Monday morning commute. And to the surprise of many New Yorkers, things went pretty smoothly.

But in New England, landlocked Vermont contended with what its governor called the worst flooding in a century. Streams also raged out of control in upstate New York.

In many cases, the moment of maximum danger arrived well after the storm had passed, as rainwater made its way into rivers and streams and turned them into torrents. Irene dumped up to 11 inches of rain on Vermont and more than 13 in parts of New York.

"We were expecting heavy rains," said Bobbi-Jean Jeun of Clarksville, a hamlet near Albany, N.Y. "We were expecting flooding. We weren't expecting devastation. It looks like somebody set a bomb off."

Meanwhile, the 11-state death toll, which had stood at 21 as of Sunday night, rose sharply as bodies were pulled from floodwaters and people were electrocuted by downed power lines.

The tally of Irene's destruction mounted, too. An apparently vacant home exploded in an evacuated, flooded area in Pompton Lakes, N.J., early Monday, and firefighters had to battle the flames from a boat. In the Albany, N.Y., suburb of Guilderland, police rescued two people Monday after their car was swept away. Rescuers found them three hours later, clinging to trees along the swollen creek.

"It's going to take time to recover from a storm of this magnitude," President Barack Obama warned as he promised the government would do everything in its power to help people get back on their feet.

For many people, the aftermath could prove more painful than the storm itself.

In North Carolina, where Irene blew ashore along the Outer Banks on Saturday before heading for New York and New England, 1,000 people were still in emergency shelters, awaiting word on their homes.

At the same time, nearly 5 million homes and businesses in a dozen states were still without electricity, and utilities warned it might be a week or more before some people got their power back.

"Once the refrigerator gets warm, my insulin goes bad. I could go into diabetic shock. It's kind of scary because we don't know how long it's going to be out for," said Patricia Dillon, a partially paralyzed resident of a home for the disabled in Milford, Conn., where the electricity was out and a generator failed. Her voice cracking, she added: "I'm very tired, stressed out, aggravated, scared."

Russ Furlong of Barrington, R.I., ruefully remembered the two weeks he went without power after Hurricane Bob 20 years ago.

"Hopefully, we won't have to wait that long this time," he said. "Last night we had candles. It was romantic. It was fun. But that feeling doesn't last too long."

Up and down the Eastern Seaboard, commuters and vacationers found their travel plans scrambled. Airlines warned it would be days before the thousands of passengers stranded by Irene find their way home. Some Amtrak service in the Northeast was suspended. Commuter trains between New Jersey and New York City were not running. Trains between the city and its northern suburbs were also disrupted.

Kris and Jennifer Sylvester of Brooklyn sat on a bench in the town center in Woodstock, N.Y., with luggage at their feet and their daughters, aged 4 and 9, holding signs reading, "Need a Ride 2 NYC" and "Help Us, No Bus, No Train." They rode Amtrak out for a long weekend in the country, but were unable to get home.

"We're hoping for anything," Jennifer Sylvester said.

In Vermont, the state's emergency management headquarters stood empty, evacuated because of river flooding from Irene's heavy rains. Rescuers used a boat and bucket loaders to pluck seven people from a swamped mobile home park in Lyndonville.

In upstate New York, authorities were closely watching major dams holding back drinking water reservoirs.

Throughout the region, hundreds of roads were impassable because of flooding or fallen trees, and some bridges had simply given way, including a 156-year-old hand-hewn, wooden, covered bridge across Schoharie Creek in Blenheim, N.Y. In all, more than a dozen towns in Vermont and at least three in New York remained cut off by flooded roads and bridges.

Still, there were glimmers of good news. In Pennsylvania, the Delaware River largely remained in its banks, cresting several feet lower than feared. The forecast for flooding on the Mohawk River in New York also eased at Schenectady, N.Y., where officials had worried that high water might threaten the city's drinking water and sewage treatment plant.

Early estimates put Irene's damage at $7 billion to $10 billion, much smaller than the impact of monster storms such as Hurricane Katrina, which did more than $100 billion in damage. Irene's effects are small compared to the overall U.S. economy, which produces about $14 trillion of goods and services every year.

While hard-hit regions, such as the North Carolina coast, will suffer from lost tourism, rebuilding homes, repairing cars, and fixing streets and bridges should provide a small boost to economy, experts said.

Irene was also good for business at Fantastic Kids Toys in New York City, where sales of board games and arts-and-crafts items surged on Friday and Saturday. "People were buying anything to keep their kids busy," owner Steve Reis said.

Many people were surprised by the destruction that Hurricane Irene wrought in communities far inland. But National Weather Service records show that 59 percent of the deaths attributed to hurricanes since the 1970s have been from freshwater flooding.

As for why the flooding was so bad this time, Shaun Tanner, a meteorologist with the forecasting service Weather Underground, noted that August had been unusually wet, and Irene's sheer size meant huge amounts of rain were dumped over a very large area.

"More attention should have been paid to the torrential rain that Irene was going to dump not only on coastal areas, but also inland. That was clear several days ahead of time," Tanner said.

___

Jennifer Peltz contributed to this story from New York City. Associated Press writers John Christoffersen in East Haven, Conn.; Kevin Begos in Pittsburgh; Jeff McMillan in Philadelphia; Michael Gormley in Albany, N.Y.; Michael Hill in Woodstock, N.Y.; David Porter in Pompton Lakes, N.J.; Michael Rubinkam in Easton, Pa.; Erika Niedowski in Providence, R.I.; Laura Crimaldi in Cranston, R.I.; Dave Gram in Montpelier; and Jon Fahey, Samantha Bomkamp, Eileen A.J. Connelly, Anne D'Innocenzio, Verena Dobnik, Chris Kahn, Karen Matthews, Christina Rexrode and Karen Zraick in New York City contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/irenes-toll-jumps-40-vt-towns-battle-floods-025046068.html
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Irene's toll jumps to 40; Vt. towns battle floods

Irene's toll jumps to 40; Vt. towns battle floods


A damaged historic covered bridge spans Cox Brook in Northfield, Vt., Monday, Aug. 29, 2011, the day after Tropical Storm Irene dumped heavy rainfall AP – A damaged historic covered bridge spans Cox Brook in Northfield, Vt., Monday, Aug. 29, 2011, the day …
By WILSON RING and JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press – Mon Aug 29, 11:00 pm ET

MONTPELIER, Vt. – The full measure of Hurricane Irene's fury came into focus Monday as the death toll jumped to 40, New England towns battled epic floods and millions faced the dispiriting prospect of several days without electricity.

From North Carolina to Maine, communities cleaned up and took stock of the uneven and hard-to-predict costs of a storm that spared the nation's biggest city a nightmare scenario, only to deliver a historic wallop to towns well inland.

In New York City, where people had braced for a disaster-movie scene of water swirling around skyscrapers, the subways and buses were up and running again in time for the Monday morning commute. And to the surprise of many New Yorkers, things went pretty smoothly.

But in New England, landlocked Vermont contended with what its governor called the worst flooding in a century. Streams also raged out of control in upstate New York.

In many cases, the moment of maximum danger arrived well after the storm had passed, as rainwater made its way into rivers and streams and turned them into torrents. Irene dumped up to 11 inches of rain on Vermont and more than 13 in parts of New York.

"We were expecting heavy rains," said Bobbi-Jean Jeun of Clarksville, a hamlet near Albany, N.Y. "We were expecting flooding. We weren't expecting devastation. It looks like somebody set a bomb off."

Meanwhile, the 11-state death toll, which had stood at 21 as of Sunday night, rose sharply as bodies were pulled from floodwaters and people were electrocuted by downed power lines.

The tally of Irene's destruction mounted, too. An apparently vacant home exploded in an evacuated, flooded area in Pompton Lakes, N.J., early Monday, and firefighters had to battle the flames from a boat. In the Albany, N.Y., suburb of Guilderland, police rescued two people Monday after their car was swept away. Rescuers found them three hours later, clinging to trees along the swollen creek.

"It's going to take time to recover from a storm of this magnitude," President Barack Obama warned as he promised the government would do everything in its power to help people get back on their feet.

For many people, the aftermath could prove more painful than the storm itself.

In North Carolina, where Irene blew ashore along the Outer Banks on Saturday before heading for New York and New England, 1,000 people were still in emergency shelters, awaiting word on their homes.

At the same time, nearly 5 million homes and businesses in a dozen states were still without electricity, and utilities warned it might be a week or more before some people got their power back.

"Once the refrigerator gets warm, my insulin goes bad. I could go into diabetic shock. It's kind of scary because we don't know how long it's going to be out for," said Patricia Dillon, a partially paralyzed resident of a home for the disabled in Milford, Conn., where the electricity was out and a generator failed. Her voice cracking, she added: "I'm very tired, stressed out, aggravated, scared."

Russ Furlong of Barrington, R.I., ruefully remembered the two weeks he went without power after Hurricane Bob 20 years ago.

"Hopefully, we won't have to wait that long this time," he said. "Last night we had candles. It was romantic. It was fun. But that feeling doesn't last too long."

Up and down the Eastern Seaboard, commuters and vacationers found their travel plans scrambled. Airlines warned it would be days before the thousands of passengers stranded by Irene find their way home. Some Amtrak service in the Northeast was suspended. Commuter trains between New Jersey and New York City were not running. Trains between the city and its northern suburbs were also disrupted.

Kris and Jennifer Sylvester of Brooklyn sat on a bench in the town center in Woodstock, N.Y., with luggage at their feet and their daughters, aged 4 and 9, holding signs reading, "Need a Ride 2 NYC" and "Help Us, No Bus, No Train." They rode Amtrak out for a long weekend in the country, but were unable to get home.

"We're hoping for anything," Jennifer Sylvester said.

In Vermont, the state's emergency management headquarters stood empty, evacuated because of river flooding from Irene's heavy rains. Rescuers used a boat and bucket loaders to pluck seven people from a swamped mobile home park in Lyndonville.

In upstate New York, authorities were closely watching major dams holding back drinking water reservoirs.

Throughout the region, hundreds of roads were impassable because of flooding or fallen trees, and some bridges had simply given way, including a 156-year-old hand-hewn, wooden, covered bridge across Schoharie Creek in Blenheim, N.Y. In all, more than a dozen towns in Vermont and at least three in New York remained cut off by flooded roads and bridges.

Still, there were glimmers of good news. In Pennsylvania, the Delaware River largely remained in its banks, cresting several feet lower than feared. The forecast for flooding on the Mohawk River in New York also eased at Schenectady, N.Y., where officials had worried that high water might threaten the city's drinking water and sewage treatment plant.

Early estimates put Irene's damage at $7 billion to $10 billion, much smaller than the impact of monster storms such as Hurricane Katrina, which did more than $100 billion in damage. Irene's effects are small compared to the overall U.S. economy, which produces about $14 trillion of goods and services every year.

While hard-hit regions, such as the North Carolina coast, will suffer from lost tourism, rebuilding homes, repairing cars, and fixing streets and bridges should provide a small boost to economy, experts said.

Irene was also good for business at Fantastic Kids Toys in New York City, where sales of board games and arts-and-crafts items surged on Friday and Saturday. "People were buying anything to keep their kids busy," owner Steve Reis said.

Many people were surprised by the destruction that Hurricane Irene wrought in communities far inland. But National Weather Service records show that 59 percent of the deaths attributed to hurricanes since the 1970s have been from freshwater flooding.

As for why the flooding was so bad this time, Shaun Tanner, a meteorologist with the forecasting service Weather Underground, noted that August had been unusually wet, and Irene's sheer size meant huge amounts of rain were dumped over a very large area.

"More attention should have been paid to the torrential rain that Irene was going to dump not only on coastal areas, but also inland. That was clear several days ahead of time," Tanner said.

___

Jennifer Peltz contributed to this story from New York City. Associated Press writers John Christoffersen in East Haven, Conn.; Kevin Begos in Pittsburgh; Jeff McMillan in Philadelphia; Michael Gormley in Albany, N.Y.; Michael Hill in Woodstock, N.Y.; David Porter in Pompton Lakes, N.J.; Michael Rubinkam in Easton, Pa.; Erika Niedowski in Providence, R.I.; Laura Crimaldi in Cranston, R.I.; Dave Gram in Montpelier; and Jon Fahey, Samantha Bomkamp, Eileen A.J. Connelly, Anne D'Innocenzio, Verena Dobnik, Chris Kahn, Karen Matthews, Christina Rexrode and Karen Zraick in New York City contributed to this report.

http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110830/ap_on_re_us/us_irene
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Senin, 29 Agustus 2011

Topan Irene Terjang New York, 21 Tewas


Topan Irene Terjang New York, 21 Tewas

"Ini tidak pernah terjadi," kata Presiden Amerika, Barack Obama.

SENIN, 29 AGUSTUS 2011, 08:38 WIB
Eko Huda S
Jalan kosong New York sebelum topan Irene datang (AP Photo)
BERITA TERKAIT

VIVAnews - Topan Irene yang menghantam kawasan pantai timur Amerika Serikat menyebabkan Kota New York dikepung banjir. Sekitar 4,5 juta rumah terendam. Pusat bisnis di kota metropolitan itu juga lumpuh.

Tak hannya itu, sebanyak 21 orang tewas akibat terjangan topan ganas ini. Sebagian besar tewas saat pohon tumbang menimpa atap rumah atau mobil mereka.

"Ini belum pernah terjadi," kata Presiden Amerika, Barack Obama sebagaimana dikutipAssociated Press.

Banjir yang diakibatkan oleh topan Irene menyapu daerah Vermont bagian dari Brattleboro, dan Bennington. Hujan lebat akibat topan ini juga menyebabkan banjir dari North Carolina hingga Delaware.

Akibat topan ini, sebanyak 370 ribu warga New York harus mengungsi dari kota super sibuk ini. Sebanyak 9 ribu penerbangan ditunda. Kecepatan angin sendiri saat ini mencapai 50 km/jam. (sj)

• VIVAnews

http://dunia.vivanews.com/news/read/243842-irene--21-tewas-new-york-dikepung-banjir
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Minggu, 28 Agustus 2011

WEAKENED HURRICANE IRENE BLASTS NEW YORK

WEAKENED HURRICANE IRENE BLASTS NEW YORK

By Sebastian Smith, AAPAugust 28, 2011, 9:08 pm

RELATED LINKS

A weakened Hurricane Irene has torn into New York, hammering Manhattan's skyscrapers with fierce winds and threatening to flood the financial district after killing at least nine people along the US east coast.

The first hurricane to hit the Big Apple for a generation swept in overnight, accompanied by lightning, reports of tornados and deafening rainfall.

As Irene approached the New Jersey shore, its wind strength diminished substantially, dropping to just 75km/h, at the threshold of hurricane status. But it still remained a tremendous storm.

The hurricane made its second landfall near Atlantic City, New Jersey, just before sunrise on Sunday.

Meanwhile, New York City resembled a ghost town after 370,000 people were told to evacuate flood-prone areas, including near Wall Street and at Coney Island, and mass transport was shut down.

Trains, buses and the Staten Island ferry all shut down on Saturday, as did all nearby airports, paralysing the city.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a media conference that running from the storm was no longer possible.

"At this point, if you haven't evacuated, our suggestion is you stay where you are," he said. "Nature is a lot stronger than the rest of us."

Irene made US its first landfall at 8am (2200 AEST) on Saturday at Cape Lookout, North Carolina, near a chain of barrier islands and quickly proved deadly.

At least nine people died on Saturday - in car accidents, from heart attack and by falling trees - in North Carolina, Virginia and Florida. The youngest victim, an 11-year-old boy, died when a tree crashed through his apartment building in Newport News, Virginia.

The storm then re-entered the ocean off the coasts of Virginia and Maryland.

On its passage up the coast, Irene knocked out power supplies for well over a million people, triggered the cancellation of more than 8000 flights, and forced nearly two million people to evacuate, half of them in New Jersey.

Officials in New York said the biggest danger was from flooding caused not just because of tropical-style rainfall but a surge of wind-driven seawater pushing up from the Atlantic, especially at high tide early on Sunday.

City areas at risk of being swamped included parts of the financial district in Manhattan and low-lying beach resorts in Brooklyn and Queens and on nearby Long Island. Boat owners scrambled to get their craft ashore and officials across New Jersey and New York pleaded with residents to keep off beaches.

Officials say Manhattan's skyscrapers are not at risk of serious damage but warn that power outages might strand residents without light, water or lifts.

The disruption took on an international character after the area's three big airports - John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia and Newark - were ordered to stop all flights at 10pm (1200 AEST) .

The flightaware.com website, which tracks airport arrivals and departures, estimated 8337 flights would be cancelled during the weekend, mainly US domestic trips. It warned the figure would rise.

President Barack Obama, who cut short his summer holiday, visited the Federal Emergency Management Agency's operations centre in Washington, where he said the east coast was in for a "long 72 hours".

Obama chaired a meeting at the National Response Co-ordination Centre, set up to marshall federal and local hurricane-relief efforts.

"This is going to be a tough slog getting through this thing," Obama said during a video teleconference including senior federal officials and local government agencies.

About 65 million people live in the urban corridor from Washington north to Boston, and experts have said the damage could cost anything up to $US12 billion ($A11.5 billion) to restore.

"This is going to be a very serious storm, no matter what the track is, no matter how much it weakens. This is a life-threatening storm to people here," Bloomberg said.

Irene's approach stirred painful memories of Hurricane Katrina, which smashed into the southern Gulf Coast in 2005, stranding thousands of people in New Orleans and overwhelming poorly prepared local and federal authorities.

Hurricanes are rare in the northeastern US - the last big one to hit New York was Gloria in 1985 - but this time authorities say they are ready.

The military said up to 101,000 National Guard soldiers were available if needed and designated military bases in three states as staging areas.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/queensland/a/-/world/10128753/hurricane-irene-hits-new-york/
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Slower but still powerful, Irene hits land in NJ

Slower but still powerful, Irene hits land in NJ

By MITCH WEISS - Associated Press,SAMANTHA GROSS - Associated Press | AP – 45 mins ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Barely a hurricane but massive and packed with rain, Irene lumbered onto the New Jersey shore Sunday morning on its way toward pummeling New York, which turned eerily quiet as the city hunkered down.

The National Hurricane Center said the center of the huge storm reached land near Little Egg Inlet, about 85 miles south-southwest of New York, at 5:35 a.m. The eye previously reached land Saturday in North Carolina before returning to the Atlantic, straddling the East Coast as it flooded towns, killed at least eight people and knocked out power to more than 3 million homes and businesses.

Broadway, baseball and most other things were shuttered in New York, where the transit system stopped because of weather for the first time in history. Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned late Saturday that no matter whether residents of low-lying areas heeded his calls to evacuate, "The time for evacuation is over. Everyone should now go inside and stay inside."

Hours before the storm's center was to reach New York, a 58 mph wind gust hit John F. Kennedy International Airport and a storm surge of more than 3.5 feet was reported in New York Harbor.

National Weather Service meteorologist Ashley Sears said a storm surge of 4 to 8 feet was expected to rush in just before the eye crosses land. Wind and rain should start diminishing by midafternoon, but if the storm surge deluges Lower Manhattan, the water could linger for hours or even a day.

By Sunday morning, the storm had sustained winds of 75 mph, down from 100 mph on Friday. That's just 1 mph more than the 74 mph minimum for a Category 1 hurricane, the least threatening on a 1-to-5 scale.

The total extent of damage Saturday was unclear, but officials and residents in some areas were relieved to find their communities with relatively minor problems. Forecasters said the storm remained capable of causing ruinous flooding with a combination of storm surge, high tides and 6 to 12 inches of rain.

"Everything is still in effect," National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said. "The last thing people should do is go outside. They need to get inside and stay in a safe place until this thing is over."

Tornadoes were reported in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, and several warnings were issued elsewhere, including New York and Philadelphia.

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

More than one million of the homes and businesses without power were in Virginia and North Carolina, the first states in the path of Irene's eye. Then the storm knocked out power overnight to hundreds of thousands in Washington, D.C., Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the New York City area and Connecticut.

In Virginia, three people were killed by falling trees and about 100 roads were closed. 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.

"I think it's a little strong to say we dodged a bullet. However, it certainly could have turned out worse for the Hampton Roads area," said National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Montefusco.

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 tweeted this synopsis: "Currently in OC sustained winds of 53mph and gust to 80mph. Rain total 11 inches. 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."

In North Carolina, where at least two people were killed, Gov. Beverly Perdue said Irene inflicted significant damage along the North Carolina coast and 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.

Television coverage showed evidence of damage across eastern North Carolina with downed trees and toppled power lines.

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.

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.

A nuclear reactor at Maryland's Calvert Cliffs went offline automatically when winds knocked off a large piece of aluminum siding that came into contact with 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 made its official landfall just after first light near Cape Lookout, N.C., at the southern end of the Outer Banks, the ribbon of land that bows out into the Atlantic Ocean. Shorefront hotels and houses were lashed with waves, two piers were destroyed and at least one hospital was forced to run on generator power.

Across the Eastern Seaboard, at least 2.3 million people were under orders to move to somewhere safer. Thousands went to shelters and many found other places to stay, but some stayed put.

Annette Burton, 72, was asked to leave her Chester, Pa., neighborhood because of danger of rising water from a nearby creek. She said she planned to remain in the row house along with her daughter and adult grandson, although with a wary eye on the park across the street that routinely floods during heavy rains.

"I'm not a fool; if it starts coming up from the park, I'm leaving," she said. "It's the wind I'm more concerned about than anything."

As the storm's outer bands reached New York on Saturday night, two kayakers capsized and had to be rescued off Staten Island. They received summonses and a dressing-down from Bloomberg, who said at a press conference that they recklessly put rescuers' lives at risk.

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.

In New York, authorities undertook the herculean job of bringing the city to a halt. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority shut down its subways, trains and buses for a natural disaster for the first time, a job that began at noon Saturday and took into late that night to complete.

On Wall Street, sandbags were placed around subway grates near the East River because of fear of flooding. Tarps were spread over other grates. Construction stopped throughout the city, and workers at the site of the World Trade Center dismantled a crane and secured equipment.

The city was far quieter than on an average Saturday. In some of the busiest parts of Manhattan, it was possible to cross a major avenue without looking, and the waters of New York Harbor, which might normally be churning from boat traffic, were quiet. About 370,000 people living in low-lying areas of the city, mostly in Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, were under orders to clear out.

New York has seen only a few hurricanes in the past 200 years. The Northeast is much more used to snowstorms — including a blizzard last December, when Bloomberg was criticized for a slow response.

___

Mitch Weiss reported from Nags Head, N.C. Associated Press writers contributing to this report were Tim Reynolds and Christine Armario in Miami; Bruce Shipkowski in Surf City, N.J.; Geoff Mulvihill in Trenton, N.J.; Wayne Parry in Atlantic City, N.J.; Eric Tucker in Washington; Martha Waggoner and Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, N.C.; Jessica Gresko in Ocean City, Md.; Mitch Weiss in Nags Head, N.C.; Alex Dominguez in Baltimore; Dena Potter in Richmond, Va.; Brock Vergakis in Virginia Beach, Va.; Samantha Bomkamp and Jonathan Fahey in New York; and Seth Borenstein in Washington.

http://news.yahoo.com/slower-still-powerful-irene-hits-land-nj-103351113.html
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