Damage and Flooding Scar Atlantic Seaboard

[Omaha Steve]

Source: NY Times

By KIM SEVERSON, DAN BARRY and CAMPBELL ROBERTSON

COINJOCK, N.C. — Weakened but unbowed, Hurricane Irene churned up the Atlantic Seaboard early Sunday toward a battened-down New York City, where officials had taken what were called the unprecedented steps of evacuating low-lying areas and shutting down the mass transit system in advance of the storm’s expected midmorning arrival on Sunday.

Announcing itself with howling winds and hammering rains, the hurricane made landfall at Cape Lookout, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, at about 7:30 a.m., ending several days of anxious anticipation and beginning who knows how many more days of response and cleanup. Downed and denuded trees. Impassable roadways. Damaged municipal buildings. Widespread flooding. The partial loss of a modest civic center’s roof, forcing the relocation of dozens of people who had found shelter there.

Along the Atlantic Seaboard, and most particularly in New York, officials frantically tried to convince people to heed evacuation orders.

In Nags Head, N.C., on the Outer Banks, Saturday began with surging waves eating away at the dunes, while winds peeled the siding from vacated beach houses — as if to challenge the National Hurricane Center’s early morning decision to downgrade Irene to a Category 1 hurricane, whose maximum sustained winds would reach only — only — 90 miles an hour, with occasional stronger gusts.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/us/28hurricane-irene.html?_r=1&partner=EXCITE&ei=5043

---

This article was reported by Kim Severson, Dan Barry and Campbell Robertson and was written by Mr. Barry.


Scott Olson/Getty Images

People shielded themselves from blowing sand and rain in Kill Devil Hills, N.C., during Hurricane Irene on Saturday. The storm, which is due to reach New York around midmorning Sunday, is blamed for at least five deaths in North Carolina and Virginia. More Photos » http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/08/27/us/20110828-HURRICANE.html

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[dipsydoodle]

2. Dramatic video from Long Beach on Long Island,

http://www.youtube.com/associatedpress#p/u/5/dC9_Uek_nDg

[salin]

3. pretty startling

when the guard house breaks away and starts floating.