Irene Hits North Carolina, Moves Up East Coast

By Ned Barnett

MOREHEAD CITY – Weaker but still dangerous Hurricane Irene howled ashore in North Carolina on Saturday on a path that triggered evacuations in New York and threatened the densely populated U.S. East Coast.

As states from the Carolinas to Maine faced flooding and power outages, New York City ordered unprecedented evacuations and its subway and airports closed down.

At least three deaths were reported in North Carolina.

The storm’s giant width guaranteed a stormy weekend for tens of millions of people on the U.S. eastern seaboard.

With winds of 85 miles per hour (140 km per hour), Irene had weakened to a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale.

It could weaken to a tropical storm by the time it hits New England on Sunday, but the U.S. National Hurricane Center said that would make little difference in the impact from its damaging winds, flooding rains and dangerous storm surge.

“I would advise people not to focus that much on Category 1, 2 or 3 … if you’re in a hurricane, it’s a big deal,” U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a conference call. “This remains a large and dangerous storm,” she said.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg sternly told New Yorkers that Irene was still a life-threatening hurricane and urged them to heed evacuation orders.

“Staying behind is dangerous, staying behind is foolish and it’s against the law,” Bloomberg said at a media briefing at Coney Island in Brooklyn.

Some 370,000 city residents were ordered to leave their homes in low-lying areas, many of them in parts of the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens and in downtown Manhattan, he said.

Forecasters warned the ocean could surge up to 8 feet (2.5 meters) high in Long Island Sound when Irene passes, posing a flooding risk to some low-lying parts of metropolitan New York.

The eye of the storm crossed the shore of North Carolina’s Outer Banks near Cape Lookout around 7:30 a.m. EDT (1130 GMT), forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Irene chugged up the coast on a north-northeast track. By 11 a.m. (1500 GMT), the center was west of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about 120 miles (190 km) south of Norfolk, Virginia.

THREE DEATHS REPORTED

When Irene hit the North Carolina coast at daybreak, winds howled through the power lines, rain fell in sheets and streets were flooded or littered with signs and tree branches. In the port city of Wilmington, the air was filled with the sound of pine trees cracking.

“You look outside and it’s like nature is dancing for us,” said Joe Toledo, who left his mobile home with his wife Cindy to take shelter in a hotel in Havelock, North Carolina.

There were reports of at least three deaths in North Carolina — one man hit by a falling tree branch and another washed away and feared drowned. Another man died of a heart attack while trying to board up his house, North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue said.

Nearly 300,000 people were without electricity in North Carolina and Virginia. Two North Carolina hospitals were operating on generators and two sewage treatment plants were without power. Perdue said there could be “a major hit” to tobacco crops, poultry and livestock.

“Fortunately, the force has not been the kind originally forecast,” Perdue said.

FLEEING THE BEACH

More than a million people were ordered to evacuate from Irene’s path. Summer vacationers fled beach towns and resort islands, and the Atlantic City casinos emptied out and shut down on the New Jersey shore.

Supermarkets and hardware stores were inundated with people stocking up on food, water, flashlights, batteries, generators and other supplies.

“Our number of customers has tripled in the last day or two as people actually said ‘Wow, this thing is going to happen,’” said Jack Gurnon, owner of a hardware store in Boston.

Airlines canceled nearly 7,000 flights over the weekend and all three New York area airports were to close to incoming flights at noon (1600 GMT) on Saturday.

President Barack Obama said the storm could be “extremely dangerous and costly” for a nation that recalls the destruction in 2005 from Hurricane Katrina, which swamped New Orleans, killed up to 1,800 people and caused $80 billion in damage.

Irene was the first hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Ike pounded Texas in 2008.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the military stood ready to help, with more than 100,000 National Guard forces available if needed in eastern states.

In Washington, Irene forced the postponement of a ceremony on Sunday to dedicate a new memorial to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Tens of thousands of people, including Obama, had been expected to attend.

The District of Columbia gave out 7,000 sandbags and residents in low-lying areas tried to shore up their homes against the anticipated flooding.

Irene swept through the Northeast Caribbean and the Bahamas as a Category 3 hurricane earlier in the week, bringing floods that killed one person in Puerto Rico and at least three in the Dominican Republic.- © REUTERS 2011