Wind and rain from Hurricane Irene lash New York

Mtoday news / CNN-IBN

New York, Aug 27:  Hurricane Irene made landfall on the coast of New Jersey early on Sunday morning and continued its relentless push to the New York City area, shutting down mass transit, causing flooding and cutting power to more than a million people.

Though the storm was downgraded to a tropical storm as it moved up the Eastern Seaboard, it continued to funnel storm surge and floodwater onto the coastline of New Jersey and New York. The National Hurricane Center said the storm reached Little Egg Inlet, north of Atlantic City, shortly after 5.30 AM, whipping the area with sustained winds of 75 miles per hour.

 

 

 

 

The hurricane first came ashore Saturday morning near Cape Lookout, North Carolina, then slipped back over water farther north near Virginia and Maryland, before hitting land again in New Jersey.

New York was the next major city in the storm’s path, and forecasters predicted the center of the storm would reach the area about 10 AM on Sunday.

Officials in the city and on Long Island warned that a big problem could be flooding at high tide, around 8 AM on Sunday morning - before the storm has moved on and the wind has abated. The storm is expected to pass through the New York City area by Sunday afternoon before moving into southern New England.

But forecasts on Sunday morning offered some encouragement. City officials said it appeared that the hurricane was moving more quickly than they expected; if that remained the case, it could mean less damage as the storm passes through the metropolitan area.

"Things look better than we anticipated," said Christopher Gilbride, a spokesman for the city’s Office of Emergency Management.

City officials said they expected a storm surge of four to eight feet at high tide and there was concern about the Battery. Water had breached the seawall near the Staten Island Ferry Terminal in Lower Manhattan. In Brooklyn, the streets nearest the Coney Island boardwalk were filling with water. Flooding was also causing problems in highways across the city, including the Henry Hudson Parkway and the West Side Highway in Manhattan and the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn.

The brunt of the storm was predicted to hit New York City on Sunday morning before moving out.

"At noon the most intense part of the storm would be past us," Caswell F. Holloway, the city’s deputy mayor for operations, told reporters at an early morning briefing. "We’re in the window that is the most dangerous."

 

 

 

 

For much of the night, the metropolitan area was pounded with heavy rain and wind, causing power failures and flooding. But with the city all but closed down in anticipation of what forecasters warned could be violent winds with the force to drive a wall of water over the beaches in the Rockaways and between the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan, officials reported relative calm as daybreak approached.

Mass transit shut down on Saturday, and three bridges over Jamaica Bay were shut down between 1 and 2 AM on Sunday and remained closed: the Cross Bay Bridge, the Marine Parkway Bridge, and the Broad Channel bridge. The lower level of the George Washington Bridge remained closed, while flooding forced the closing of one of the tubes of the Holland Tunnel.

Power failures were spreading throughout the Northeast, and utility officials expected they would worsen as the storm churned northward.

In New Jersey, more than a half a million customers were without power on Sunday, and the state’s largest utility, the Public Service Electric and Gas Company, estimated that it could take as long as a week to restore electricity to all its customers. Connecticut Light & Power said 267,000 customers had lost power.

In New York, nearly 400,000 customers were without electricity on Sunday, according to the office of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. That included 271,000 customers who get their power from the Long Island Power Authority, and 74,000 customers of Consolidated Edison. Many of those outages were in Queens, where 21,700 customers were without power, and on Staten Island, where customers people had lost electricity.

Forecasters said the relentless rain from the slow-moving storm made it very dangerous.

"Even though they are saying that the storm is quote-on-quote weakening, hurricane winds are hurricane winds," John Searing, the deputy commissioner of the Suffolk County Department of Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services, said before daybreak on Sunday as he prepared to deal with the damage. "Whether they say it’s 80 miles or 75 miles an hour, what’s the physical difference in that?"

The National Hurricane Center warned that the storm would create "an extremely dangerous storm surge" of four to eight feet about ground level. At 5 AM, the center reported a storm surge of 3.1 feet at Cape May, New Jersey, 3.8 feet in Sandy Hook, New jersey, and 3.9 feet in New York Harbor. At 8 AM, it said a total water level of 8.6 feet had been reported in Battery Park.

In some places in New Jersey, roadways were flooded out; in other places, they were blocked by downed power lines or other debris. Nearly 10,000 people were in shelters across the state, and state officials estimated that number would grow as flash flooding forces residents from their homes.

In Buena Vista, New Jersey, in Atlantic County, officials scrambled on Sunday to evacuate three dozen senior citizens from trailer homes that were imperiled by sudden flooding. In Millburn, New jersey, in Essex County, at least five houses had been struck by falling trees, widespread flooding was reported, and the authorities asked residents to boil their water before drinking it.

Not long before sunrise, the Millburn Police Department deployed a bucket loader to rescue a motorist who had driven around a barricade, only to get stranded in chest-high floodwaters.

"We are not having a great morning," said Lt. Peter Eakley, the township’s deputy emergency management coordinator.

On Long Island, officials in Nassau County said they responded overnight to several house fires that were caused by candles. Around the county, trees had fallen on several state parkways, and many traffic lights had gone dark.

As the storm neared, Nassau County officials deployed 11 high-axle vehicles provided by the National Guard to the most-threatened areas to help residents who refused to evacuate, and they worried about how much the storm surge would rise. "We’re bracing for that," said Edward P. Mangano, the county executive.

In New York City, meanwhile, the overnight hours felt more like a heavy rainstorm than an impending natural disaster. But forecasters warned the worst was still to come, and travel around the city was increasingly treacherous.

On the Jackie Robinson Parkway, three feet of water blocked all lanes, state and city officials reported. Floodwaters diverted traffic on the Verrazano Bridge and shut the southbound FDR drive at 116th Street. The Union Turnpike ramp on the Grand Central Parkway was shut and on the Cross Bronx Expressway, the rising waters blocked the exit at White Plains Road.

By early Sunday morning, the city had received 176 reports of downed trees or branches across the five boroughs. While most New Yorkers so far appear to have heeded Mr. Bloomberg’s advice to stay indoors, officials worried that some people would be tempted to head outside at daybreak when they awaken to find trees or power lines down in their neighborhood.

Some 9,600 people, mostly in Eastern Queens, are being housed in evacuation centers opened by the city, said Marc La Vorgna, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg. Many of the people in the shelters came from the Rockaways.

Over all, though, those hunkered down at city shelters represented only a small slice of the more than 250,000 people whom Mr. Bloomberg ordered to evacuate. "Most people found other places to stay," Mr. La Vorgna said.