Irene wreaks havoc on Eastern U.S.
Posted Aug 28, 2011 5:05 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Irene was downgraded to a tropical storm as it hit New York early Sunday morning and then continued to cause trouble over New England and Massachusetts.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg lifted the evacuation order set Saturday, just after 3:00pm EST, signalling the worst was over and said residents who had been ordered out of their homes in low-lying areas would be allowed to return.
He had ordered more than 370,000 people out of areas mostly in lower Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.
U-S federal officials say flights are resuming with minimal delays at Washington-area airports, which took a glancing blow from Hurricane Irene.
New York-area airports remain closed as Irene passed over the nation’s busiest air-traffic region.
The longer that Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark, New Jersey, airports remain shuttered, the worse it will be as travel delays ripple across the country. Federal officials said Sunday they didn’t know when the airports would reopen.
Airlines have already cancelled thousands of flights for Sunday, but it was unclear how much havoc the storm would cause for travellers on Monday.
New York City’s fire department has made dozens of water rescues around the city because of Irene and was searching for other people who might be trapped.
In the Broad Channel section of Queens, city rescue workers were riding in boats to search bungalows that were floating down the street to make sure no one was inside.
Altogether, the FDNY has rescued 61 adults and three babies from 21 houses.
Department spokesman Paul Iannizzotto says rescuers in boats picked up 26 people from three families Sunday morning on Staten Island after their homes were flooded by more than 5 feet (1.5 metres) of water.
U-S President Barack Obama was briefed Sunday morning as Irene was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says Obama instructed administration officials to continue to be aggressive in their efforts to deal with the storm and its aftermath.
Top administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, were also briefed on the response and recovery process.
Napolitano says the worst of the storm has passed for most areas but she says communities still in Irene’s path should continue to be vigilant even though the storm has weakened.
Napolitano also expressed her condolences for the families of those killed in the storm.
Slowly the power is returning for hundreds of thousands of people after Hurricane Irene passed through coastal states in the U-S South.
The storm flooded power stations, toppled trees and tore down electrical wires.
In Virginia, Governor Bob McDonnell says there are widespread power outages across his state.
Governor Martin O’Malley says more than 800-thousand families have lost electricity in Maryland.
From North Carolina to Pennsylvania, Irene appears to have fallen short of the doomsday predictions.
People in Nags Head say there’s been only minor damage.
Light damage is reported in many other areas, with little more than downed trees and power lines.
Atlantic City’s Casinos report little damage from Hurricane Irene, and the 11 gambling halls will reopen Monday at noon after being shuttered for the weekend.
They’ll first have to go through a long checklist of approvals from New Jersey casino regulators, all designed to ensure the integrity of the games.
Before Irene, this weekend was shaping up to be one of the best of the year and was only the third time all 11 casinos were closed.
At least 19 deaths are linked to the storm, which went ashore in North Carolina Saturday as a hurricane with winds of 160 kilometres per hour.
Tropical storm Irene continues to make its way up the eastern seaboard Sunday, working its way into Canada.
