U.S. East Coast in Irene's path, rushes to Prepare
NASSAU (Reuters) - U.S. Atlantic coastal residents from the barrier islands of North Carolina to the capital in Washington and the financial center of New York rushed to prepare on Thursday for an assault by powerful Hurricane Irene.
From the Carolinas to Cape Cod, more than 50 million people were potentially in Irene's path. States, cities, ports, industries, oil refineries and nuclear plants scrambled to activate emergency plans, while residents stocked up on food and water and worked to secure homes, vehicles and boats.
The U.S. Navy sent the ships of its Second Fleet out of port at Hampton Roads, Virginia, to ride out the expected powerful storm at sea.
Irene battered the low-lying Bahamas southeast of Florida as a major category 3 storm on Thursday and was expected to sweep northward to hit the North Carolina coast on Saturday, before raking the remaining Atlantic seaboard.
"All the major metropolitan areas along the Northeast are going to be impacted," National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read told Reuters Insider. "Being a large hurricane, tropical storm-force winds will extend far inland."
President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in North Carolina, authorizing federal aid to support the state's storm response.
After hitting North Carolina, Irene was expected to weaken to a still-dangerous Category 2 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale, still strong enough to slam dozens of Atlantic beach communities in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia this weekend before heading to New York on Monday. A Category 2 storm carries winds of 96 to 110 mph.
U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate briefed Obama and other top officials on the threat from Irene, which included tropical-storm-force winds or worse in Washington.
Irene forced the postponement of Sunday's dedication ceremony for the new memorial honoring civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on the National Mall in Washington.
Amtrak canceled train service south from Washington at least through Sunday.
Coastal evacuations were under way in North Carolina and were ordered for beach resorts in Virginia, Delaware and Maryland. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell urged residents to seek shelter by Friday night, before the winds kick up.
"Saturday is going to be a horrendous day for travel. There will be roads and bridges closed," he said.
Hurricane watches and warnings were in effect along the Atlantic coast from North Carolina to New Jersey. The governors of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut declared emergencies for Irene.
"From a flooding perspective, this could be a hundred-year event," New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said.
NEW YORK READIES
Irene will be the first hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Ike pounded Texas in 2008.
At 11 p.m. EDT (0300 GMT), Irene had sustained winds of 115 miles per hour. It was moving north and its center was about 490 miles (785 km south-southwest of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the United States' most populous city was bracing for at least tropical storm conditions and flooding starting on Sunday. Irene could hit Long Island, which extends due east from the city, as a Category 2 hurricane.
New York City hospitals and nursing homes in low-lying areas were ordered to evacuate unless they obtained permission to stay open.
"The city has already seen the power of Mother Nature once this week, and Mother Nature may not be done with us yet," Bloomberg said, referring to Tuesday's earthquake that shook the East Coast, frightening millions but causing no deaths.
He urged residents of vulnerable areas to move to safety on Friday because the New York City mass transit system, the nation's biggest with 8 million passengers a day, may have to shut down on Saturday if flooding or high winds endanger its buses, subways and commuter trains. Many New Yorkers do not have cars.
Irene was a huge storm and forecasters warned that even if the center stays offshore as it tracks up the Mid-Atlantic coast, its wide bands could lash cities like Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York with winds and flooding rain, uprooting trees and knocking out power.
STORM SURGE WARNING
Forecasters emphasized the risks for the densely populated U.S. Northeast, which has not had a direct hit from a hurricane in decades. Hurricane expert Jeff Masters of private forecaster Weather Underground wrote in his blog that Irene could inundate the Northeast coast with 10 to 15 feet of water, "the highest storm surge depths ever recorded."
Flooding from Irene killed at least one person in Puerto Rico and two in the Dominican Republic. The storm cut power in the Bahamian capital Nassau on Thursday and blocked roadways with fallen trees.
The Bahamas National Emergency Management Agency said there were reports that 90 percent of the homes and structures were destroyed in some settlements in the southeast Acklins and Crooked Islands.
The storm missed Florida but whipped up massive swells along its coast. Eight people were injured in the southeast city of Boynton Beach on Thursday when they went out on a jetty to gawk at the sea and were knocked down by a giant wave.
(Additional reporting by Tom Brown and Manuel Rueda in Miami, Daniel Trotta and Joan Gralla in New York; Vicki Allen, Laura MacInnis, Lisa Lambert and Deborah Charles in Washington; Writing by Jane Sutton; Editing by Philip Barbara)作者: 雨落风残 时间: 2011-8-26 11:10
本帖最后由 雨落风残 于 2011-8-26 15:32 编辑
Then, from New York Times:
New York Region Prepares for Hurricane Irene
With Hurricane Irene threatening a full-force hit, New York City on Thursday ordered the evacuation of nursing homes and senior centers in low-lying areas and made plans for the possible shutdown of the entire transit system.
The governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut declared states of emergency, and in one county in South Jersey, a mandatory evacuation was ordered.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said the city was ready with “evacuation contingencies” for low-lying places like Coney Island in Brooklyn, Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan and parts of Staten Island and the Rockaways in Queens — areas that are home to 250,000 people.
Mr. Bloomberg said the city was ordering nursing homes in those areas to evacuate residents beginning at 8 a.m. on Friday unless they receive special permission from state and city health officials, among them the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, who, the mayor noted, was chairman of the community health sciences department at Tulane University when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005.
At a City Hall briefing, the mayor said the five hospitals in the low-lying areas were reducing their caseloads and canceling elective surgeries on Friday to be ready for emergencies over the weekend. One, Coney Island Hospital, is to begin moving patients to vacant beds in other parts of the city on Friday, he said.
Mr. Bloomberg said he would decide by Saturday morning whether to order a general evacuation of the low-lying areas.
He also said he was revoking permits for events in the city on Sunday and in the low-lying areas on Saturday. The Sunday cancellations apparently included a concert on Governors Island by the Dave Matthews Band. A statement on the band’s Web site said people with tickets for that show should attend the Friday or Saturday performance. But the Web site said to check for updates on Friday.
The mayor said 300 street fairs over the weekend “would have to be curtailed” to keep streets clear for hurricane-related transportation — ambulances carrying patients to nursing homes or hospitals on higher ground, buses and city-owned trucks moving to where they would be ready for duty once the hurricane had swept by.
Mr. Bloomberg said people should stay out of parks because high winds could bring down trees. “And incidentally,” he said, “it’s a good idea to stay out of your own backyard if you have trees there.”
The mayor cautioned that forecasts were not always accurate and that the hurricane, a sprawling storm still far away, could become weaker.
“We’re talking about something that is a long time away in meteorological terms,” he said, “so what we have to do is assume the worst, prepare for that, and hope for the best.”
That seemed to be the official mantra from South Jersey to coastal Connecticut on Thursday. In East Hampton, N.Y., crews removed sidewalk benches so they would not blow away if Hurricane Irene howled through. In Long Beach, N.Y., maintenance crews used a different kind of defensive maneuver, building up berms that they hoped would block the waves. They also handed out sandbags.
In Southampton, N.Y., flashlights and batteries were sold out at one hardware store. There was a run on duct tape and plastic sheeting that could be placed over picture windows and sliding-glass doors, and there were lines at supermarkets and gasoline stations as people stocked up on provisions— or filled up for a getaway.
Boaters hunted for safe harbors. Steve Novack, the vice commodore of the Sag Harbor Yacht Club on Long Island, said all boats longer than 40 feet were to be removed from the dock. Next door at the Breakwater Yacht Club, where Mr. Novack is the administrator, the plan was to move all the vessels used to teach sailing onto land, but not until Friday.
In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie told shore-area residents hoping to sit out the storm that “it is not the smart thing to do.” He said people who were thinking about a weekend along the coast should think again.
“Do not go,” he said.
Mr. Christie also urged people on barrier islands to leave. “Right now, I’m asking people to do this voluntarily,” he said. “I am actively considering a mandatory evacuation, but I’m not there yet.”
Officials elsewhere echoed his concern about areas closest to the Atlantic Ocean. On Long Island, the Islip town supervisor, Phil Nolan, called for a voluntary evacuation of Fire Island “to avoid a rush of people as the storm nears Long Island.”
Cape May County, N.J., went a step further, ordering everyone out. Evacuations of its barrier islands began on Thursday afternoon. People on the mainland were told to leave beginning at 8 a.m. on Friday, said Lenora Boninfante, the county communications director.
In the northern part of the state, the Jets-Giants game at MetLife Stadium was changed to 2 p.m. Saturday from 7 p.m. because of concerns about the weather.
Back in the city, Mr. Bloomberg, along with Joseph F. Bruno, the commissioner of the city’s Office of Emergency Management, instructed residents to take preliminary steps: stock up on basic supplies, identify an alternative place to sleep in the event of an evacuation and prepare a “go bag” of essentials to allow for a rapid departure, if necessary.
As for a transit shutdown, Jay H. Walder, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said his agency could not guarantee the safety of passengers if winds remained above 39 miles per hour for a sustained period. He said it could take up to eight hours to shut down the system, meaning that transit planners may have to make a judgment call on Saturday, well before the full force of the storm is felt.
And because it takes the agency several hours to restart trains and buses, a shutdown could last through early Monday, if not longer. “It’s hard to predict when it will come back,” Mr. Walder said, “because I can’t really predict for you exactly what will happen in the storm.”
In the event of a shutdown, Mr. Walder said, the transportation authority will aid in evacuation efforts.
Mr. Bloomberg warned New Yorkers to heed any evacuation call as quickly as possible, in case mass-transit options were unavailable.
Certain low-lying areas of the subway system are particularly susceptible to flooding, in Lower Manhattan and on exposed tracks in parts of Brooklyn. Overhead catenary cables, which provide power to commuter rail lines in the suburbs north and east of the city, can be knocked down by winds, and stations on elevated routes could be dangerous for the trains and for passengers waiting to catch them.
Still, against the drumbeat of plans and announcements from officials on Thursday, some all but disregarded the hurricane talk. Dave Merklin of Freeport, N.Y., said he was doing “practically nothing, because I’ve been through so many of these storms.”
“I’ve lived in this house for 40 years,” he said. “I wait until the storm is gone, and then I clean up the mess. I don’t do much in the way of preparation except make sure the doors are closed.”作者: 雨落风残 时间: 2011-8-26 11:15
本帖最后由 雨落风残 于 2011-8-26 11:16 编辑
Last, from Washington Post.
Hurricane Irene swings north on path that will rake Eastern Seaboard
As Hurricane Irene swung north Thursday, putting the Washington region in its sights, Maryland and Virginia declared a state of emergency and Sunday’s dedication of the memorial to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was postponed.
Organizers said the event will be rescheduled for September or October. The memorial, the first on the Mall honoring an African American, has been a quarter-century in the making, but safety trumped ceremony.
Hurricane Irene was forecast to sweep over the Outer Banks of North Carolina overnight Friday and advance into the Washington area with a vanguard of showers beginning Saturday afternoon.
If the hurricane stays on track, the worst of Irene will arrive in Virginia, Maryland and the District later Saturday and into Sunday morning. Late-summer vacationers evacuated Atlantic coast beaches, which are expected to be hit hardest before the storm wallops New England.
The intensity of the storm and the shift in the forecast track farther to the west prompted the decision to delay the memorial dedication, said Harry E. Johnson Sr., chief executive of the foundation.
“I’m disappointed and hurt, really,” Johnson said. “But the memorial is going to be there forever.”
Johnson said the change might allow those who planned to travel to stay home and for those in Washington to leave ahead of the storm.
Governors along the coast, including those in Virginia and Maryland, declared states of emergency Thursday, and thousands of weekend events were canceled.
“This is a large, this is a deadly, this is a slow-moving hurricane that is bearing down on the state of Maryland,” Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) said in declaring an emergency. “There will no doubt be a lot of flooding. Citizens should anticipate long periods of electrical outages.”
A significant storm surge is expected to flood coastal areas, and wind-driven flooding may occur along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. The worst of the weather is likely to be east of the Interstate 95 corridor, which may get four to six inches of rain, prolonged winds of 50 to 70 mph, and gusts of 90 to 100 mph, according to meteorologists with The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang.
Amtrak canceled train departures from Southeastern states and curtailed some service in the Northeast. Airports said they expected flight delays and cancellations through the weekend, with many airlines allowing fliers to change their plans without penalty.
An endless stream of vacationers rolled across the bridge out of Ocean City, on Thursday evening, and homeowners rushed in the opposite direction to board up their rental properties. Ocean City was one of many resort areas where evacuation was mandatory.
Colleges on the verge of opening for the fall semester warned students to delay their arrival, and the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg told its students to go home.
Three other schools — the University of Maryland, George Washington University and Catholic University — said they would open their dormitories a day early, on Friday, so that students could get settled before the storm hit. George Mason University said it would implement a flexible move-in schedule.
In New York, the Associated Press reported that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) said officials expect to shut down the city’s transit system Saturday afternoon ahead of the hurricane, which is forecast to strike eastern Queens.
After passing over the Bahamas on Thursday, the storm first fell on the U.S. coast in Florida, where its outermost bands swept in with bursts of wind and rain and a driving riptide.
The exodus from the Outer Banks began early Thursday after an evacuation order Wednesday night. Traffic on Route 168 crawled as lines of sport-utility vehicles with surfboards and fishing rods mounted on their roofs headed north from the barrier islands.
“My aunt and uncle are used to storms, but they got a bit worried about this one,” said Melissa Wallace of St. Louis, who had been vacationing at their Cape Hatteras beach house. “We just thought better safe than sorry.”
In the Washington region, there were warnings that people should be prepared for power outages as toppling trees take down electrical lines. Road crews were on alert to clear fallen trees and other wind-driven debris from highways.
More than 2,000 sandbags were being placed at Metro stations where water tends to come up over the curbs and flow down escalators. Metro crews also checked drains in tunnels, and some vehicles assigned to Metro supervisors were being equipped with chain saws to keep the transit system moving. The District and Alexandria offered free sandbags to residents.
O’Malley said the mandatory evacuation of Ocean City underscored the seriousness of the storm. “This is not a time to get out the camera and sit on the beach and take pictures of the waves,” he said.
Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) authorized local officials to issue mandatory evacuation orders.
“I reserve the right to direct and compel evacuation from the same and different areas and determine a different timetable both where local governing bodies have made such a determination and where local governing bodies have not made such a determination,” McDonnell said in a statement.
Pepco urged customers who need power for critical medical equipment to review emergency plans and be prepared for extended power outages. Dominion Virginia Power and BGE said repair crews were preparing for emergency restoration work over the next several days. Extra crews from other states were headed to the region to assist with recovery.
“This storm has serious potential to cause widespread damage,” said Rodney Blevins, Dominion’s vice president. “We are geared up to handle any situation as quickly and safely as possible. We are treating Hurricane Irene seriously, and we urge our customers to monitor local weather forecasts for changing conditions in order to remain safe.”
Staff writers Shyamantha Asokan, Dana Hedgpeth, Jenna Johnson, Anita Kumar, Michael E. Ruane and John Wagner contributed to this report.作者: 雨落风残 时间: 2011-8-26 15:27
In Southampton, N.Y., flashlights and batteries were sold out at one hardware store. There was a run on duct tape and plastic sheeting that could be placed over picture windows and sliding-glass doors, and there were lines at supermarkets and gasoline stations as people stocked up on provisions— or filled up for a getaway.
This passage reminds me of the run on salt in our country in the last few months. Now, the Americans are rushing to purchase flashlights and duct tapes. The different between the two is that the former is irrational and the latter is.作者: tingroom 时间: 2011-8-27 11:22
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fantastic