Hurricane Irene batters New York

Hurricane Irene shut down New York and menaced other cities as it steamed up the US eastern seaboard, knocking out power to two million homes and businesses.

New York City's normally bustling streets were eerily quiet after authorities ordered tens of thousands of residents to evacuate low-lying areas and shut down its subways, airports and buses.


A group of girls point as their umbrella turns inside out in the wind and rain in New York

Those who had to travel were left trying to flag down yellow taxis that patrolled largely deserted streets.

Irene, which is still 800km wide hurricane, was enveloping towns and cities in the northeast, hugging the Atlantic coast and threatening floods and surging tides.

With winds of 130 km/h, it is a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale.

From the Carolinas to Maine, tens of millions of people were in the path of Irene, which howled ashore in North Carolina Saturday, dumping torrential rain, felling trees and knocking out power.

After moving across North Carolina with less punch than expected but still threatening, the hurricane re-emerged over inshore waters on its route northward, hugging the coast.

At least nine deaths were reported in North Carolina, Virginia and Florida. Several million people were under evacuation orders on the east coast.

The deaths included two children, an 11-year-old boy in Virginia killed when a tree crashed through his roof and a North Carolina child who died in a road crash.

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 beachgoer in Florida were killed in heavy waves.
Source: Irish Times

Published Aug 28 2011

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