Irene charges into New England, NYC escapes worst
By SAMANTHA GROSS and MITCH WEISS, Associated Press
Aug 28, 2011 1:11 PM CDT
One of two people rescued from a sailboat, right, uses a line to make their way onto the beach on Willoughby Spit in Norfolk Saturday morning, Aug. 27, 2011 after they and another person were rescued from the boat that foundered in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. A rescuer, left, waits for s second...   (Associated Press)

Irene charged into New England on Sunday as it weakened to a tropical storm after racing across a shuttered New York City and leaving behind a stunned U.S. East coast where at least 16 people died, severe flooding was widespread and 4 million homes and businesses lost power.

As waves continued pounding the Connecticut shore east of America's biggest city, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he would soon lift the evacuation order for residents in low-lying areas.

New England residents were now feeling the brunt of the diminished but still-dangerous storm, which will cause flooding and winds that could topple many towering trees anchored in soil already saturated by earlier heavy rains. The storm was expected to move over eastern Canada by Sunday night.

Forecasters said Irene, while diminished in strength, was still massive and powerful, with powerful winds extending more than 300 miles (482 kilometers) from the center.

Before Irene hit New York City, its winds weakened to 65 mph (104 kph) after its long journey up the East Coast, where it dropped a foot (30 centimeters) of rain on North Carolina and Virginia. The National Hurricane Center downgraded the storm after its winds fell below 74 mph (119 kph), the threshold for a hurricane.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said President Barack Obama was briefed Sunday morning and instructed administration officials to continue to be aggressive in their efforts to deal with the storm and its aftermath. Napolitano said the worst of the storm has passed for most areas, but she cautioned that communities still in Irene's path should continue to be vigilant even though the storm had weakened.

As the eye of the sprawling storm blew through America's largest city and Long Island to the east, it pushed an Atlantic storm surge toward New York. Briny water from New York Harbor submerged parts of a promenade at the base of the island of Manhattan. A foot (30 centimeters) of water rushed over the wall of a marina in front of the New York Mercantile Exchange, where gold and oil are traded.

The huge storm had threatened 65 million people up and down the Atlantic coast, estimated as the largest number of Americans ever affected by a single storm.

New York was eerily quiet as the storm hit. In a city where many people don't own cars, the population stayed indoors. The entire transit system was shut down because of weather for the first time ever. All of the city's airports were closed, with more than 9,000 flights canceled. Broadway shows, baseball games and other events were all canceled or postponed.

As the center of the storm passed over Central Park at midmorning, floodwater reached the wheel wells of some stranded cars in Manhattan, and more streamed into the streets of Queens.

Still, the storm didn't come close to inflicting the kind of catastrophic damage that had been feared in the city. 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.

While public transit was shut down, some taxi cabs could be found.

"I have to work. I would lose too much money," said cabbie Dwane Imame, who worked through the night. "There have been many people, I have been surprised. They are crazy to be out in this weather."

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

Irene made landfall just after dawn Saturday near Cape Lookout, North Carolina, at the southern end of the Outer Banks. Shorefront hotels and houses were lashed with waves, two piers were destroyed and at least one hospital was forced to run on generator power.

But as day broke Sunday, surprisingly light damage was reported in many places, with little more than downed trees and power lines.

"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" in Virginia, said National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Montefusco.

At the same time, officials warned of the possibility of severe flooding over the next few days as runoff from the storm makes its way into creeks and rivers. In some parts of the Northeast, the ground was soggy even before the storm because of an extremely rainy August.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett cautioned: "The rivers may not crest until Tuesday or Wednesday. This isn't just a 24-hour event."

The number of airline passengers affected by the storm could easily be in the millions because so many flights make connections on the East Coast.

Irene caused flooding from North Carolina to Delaware, both from the 7-foot (2 meter) waves it pushed into the coast and from heavy rain.

More than one million of the homes and businesses without power were in Virginia and North Carolina, which bore the brunt of Irene's initial fury. Then the storm knocked out power overnight to hundreds of thousands in Washington, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the New York City area and Connecticut.

Eastern North Carolina got up to 14 inches (35 centimeters) of rain, according to the National Weather Service. Virginia's Hampton Roads area was drenched with at least nine inches (23 centimeters), and up to 16 inches (40 centimeters) in some places.

North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue said Irene inflicted significant coastal damage, but some areas were unreachable because of high water or downed power lines.

A nuclear reactor at Maryland's Calvert Cliffs went offline automatically when winds knocked off a large piece of aluminum siding late Saturday night. Constellation Energy Nuclear Group said the facility and all employees were safe.

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 and the Gulf Coast.

The storm hit Washington just days after an earthquake damaged some of the capital's most famous structures, including the Washington Monument. By Sunday morning, however, storm damage was mainly limited to fallen trees and power lines.

In New Jersey, the Oyster Creek nuclear plant, just a few miles (kilometers) from the coast, shut down as a precaution as Irene closed in. And Boston's transit authority said all bus, subway and commuter rail service were suspended Sunday.

The deaths blamed on Irene included two children, an 11-year-old boy in Virginia killed when a tree crashed into his home and a North Carolina child who died in a car crash at an intersection where traffic lights were out. Four other people were killed by falling trees or tree limbs _ two in separate Virginia incidents, one in North Carolina and one in Maryland. A surfer and another beach-goer in Florida were killed in heavy waves.

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

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