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Monday 29 August 2011

Irene: Damp, Deadly And Expensive, But Not A Monster

Irene: Damp, Deadly And Expensive, But Not A Monster
The storm was Hurricane Irene crossed the border into Canada, during the night, but it was not yet finished with the U.S., where flooding threatened the Vermont and New York city, who returned work had to settle for a slow system re-opening of transit.
Storm left millions of people without electricity in much of the east coast, has left over 20 dead and forcing airlines to cancel about 9,000 flights. It never became a big city forecasts nightmare and public officials had been warned, but still had the ability to surprise.
Many of the worst effects created by the rain that fell within the country, not the much-anticipated storm surge along the coast. Residents of Pennsylvania and New Jersey nervously watched the waters rise as hours of rain is channeled into rivers and streams. Usually narrow strip of water turned into raging torrents in Vermont and New York Sunday night, tumbling with branches, parts of cars and bridges.

"This is not over," President Barack Obama has said from the Rose Garden.
Hundreds of Vermont told to leave their homes after Irene dumped several inches of rain in the locked state. Video posted on Facebook showed a covered bridge in Rockingham 141 years swept by the motion, Williams River clay. In another video, an empty car fell into a river in Bennington.
"It is quite difficult. I've never seen anything like it, "said Michelle Guevin, who spoke of a Brattleboro restaurant after leaving his home in nearby Newfane. She said that the fast-moving Rock River was performed as its home.
Green Mountain Power has decided to flood Montpellier, the capital, to save Mother Earth Marshfield, about 20 miles to the Winooski River to the north. Water levels have stabilized in the morning of Monday, but engineers were monitoring the situation, said spokeswoman Dorothy Schnur.
Of 350 households was asked to leave for all eventualities.
Nearly 5 million homes and businesses were without electricity at some point during the storm. The lights began to return on Sunday to many, but was expected to take days to be fully restored.
Only about 50,000 electricity customers in New York went dark, but people who had nothing else to worry about: getting to work Monday.
The system of metropolitan transport closed due to weather conditions for the first time in its history, took several hours to get back on the line. Limited bus service began Sunday and the New York subway service was partially restored at 06:00 on Monday. Riders were warned to expect long lines and long waits.
Commuter rail service from Long Island and New Jersey has been partially restored, but Metro-North Railroad to Westchester County and Connecticut were suspended due to flooding and mudslides.
Airports in New York and the north was reopened with a backlog of hundreds of thousands of passengers whose flights were canceled this weekend.
Some of the yellow cabs in New York were in their wheel wells in the water, the water and rushed to a marina near the New York Mercantile Exchange, where gold and oil are traded. However, floods in New York has not been extended to Irene, whose eye passed over Coney Island and Central Park.
The NYSE said it would be open to the public on Monday, September 11 Memorial and the site of the World Trade Center has not lost a single tree.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has defended the decision to subscribe for 370 000 residents to evacuate homes in low areas, saying it was impossible to know how strong the storm would be. "We just wanted to risk a life in the New Yorker," he said.
Irene had been at one time a major hurricane with winds of over 110 km / h as it moves towards the SU was a tropical storm with 65 mph winds when it hit New York. He lost the characteristics of a tropical storm and slowed to 50 km / h by the time it reached Canada.
Chris Fogarty, director of the Canadian Hurricane Centre warned of flooding and winds of eastern Canada and said the heaviest rain was expected in Quebec, where nearly 250,000 homes were without power.
At least 21 people died in the United States, most of them when trees crashed through roofs or cars. A Vermont woman was taken away and feared drowned in the river Deerfield.
Officials worked to repair damaged roads and hundreds of services performed by uprooted trees and lines reconnected.
One estimate put the damage costs are $ 7000000000 private, away from natural records.
Twenty houses in Long Island Sound, Connecticut has been destroyed by the waves breaking. Torrential rains chased hundreds of people in the State of New York from their homes and closed 137 miles of state highway.
Authorities around Easton, Pennsylvania, has kept a close watch on rising Delaware River. The National Weather Service forecasts the river to crest at over 27 meters, about 5 feet above flood level.
In the south, the authorities had still not sure how much damage has been done, but expressed relief that it was not worse.
"Thank God, it's a little weak," said Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, who visited an area hit hard Richmond, where big houses, old-growth trees uprooted and destroyed and cars.
In Norfolk, Virginia, where the storm is a few inches to break a record, most of the water that fell on Sunday. There were isolated flooding and fallen trees, but nowhere near the officials predicted damage.

"We can not believe survived the hurricane here," city spokeswoman Lori Crouch said.
In North Carolina, where six people were killed, the loss of infrastructure including the only path to the seven villages on Hatteras Island.
"Overall, the destruction is not as bad as I was worried that it might be, but there are still a lot of destruction and people's lives are turned upside down," said Governor Beverly Perdue, Kill Devil Hills.
In a first estimate, figured consulting firm Kinetic Analysis Corp. of total losses from the storm to $ 7 billion, with insured losses at $ 2 billion to 3 billion. The storm will take a bite of a tourism Labor Day Outer Banks off the coast of New Jersey to Cape Cod.

Irene was the first hurricane making landfall in the Americas since 2008, and became almost six years to the day after Katrina devastated New Orleans August 29, 2005.
Gram reported in Montpellier. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Beth Fouhy, Samantha Bomkamp, ​​Verena Dobnik, Jonathan Fahey, Tom Hays, Colleen Long and Larry Neumeister in New York, Brock Vergakis in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Marc Levy in Chester, Pennsylvania , and Jeff McMillan, Philadelphia, and Seth Borenstein, Christopher S. Rugabira in Washington.

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