New York Stock Exchange ready for trading Monday

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By CHIP CUTTER and CANDICE CHOI

NEW YORK (AP) - The opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange will ring on time Monday.

Operators of the historic Big Board and other major U.S. exchanges said they plan to open for trading as usual. Their announcements came after city officials said damage from Tropical Storm Irene wasn't as severe as feared in New York's financial district.

How all the people who work at the exchanges and related businesses in New York will make it to work remained a puzzle late Sunday. Limited bus service resumed in Manhattan and the Bronx Sunday evening, but it wasn't clear the city's subways and buses would be running normally in time for Monday's morning commute. And flooding and downed trees obstructed tracks throughout the commuter rail systems that bring workers in from the Connecticut, New York and New Jersey suburbs.

The nation's largest mass transit system shut down ahead of the storm, and hundreds of thousands of city residents were ordered to leave threatened areas. Mayor Michael Bloomberg lifted the evacuation order for downtown Manhattan, effective 3 p.m.

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20110828/D9PDC0UG0.html

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A man tries to hail a cab on deserted Wall Street, Saturday, Aug. 27, 2011 in New York. Hurricane Irene opened its assault on the Eastern Seaboard on Saturday by lashing the North Carolina coast with wind as strong as 115 mph (185 kph) and pounding shoreline homes with waves. Farther north, Philadelphia and New York City-area authorities readied a massive shutdown of trains and airports, with 2 million people ordered out of the way.(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)