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Irene storm cleanup in U.S. an emotional task
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The Associated Press- The number crunching and recovery efforts have begun as people try to resume their normal routines after Hurricane Irene's weekend Eastern Seaboard wallop left at least 21 dead in eight states, caused massive flooding, and paralyzed air and ground transportation.
After Irene weakened to a post-tropical storm and headed over Eastern Canada on Monday morning, in New York City, commuters have begun using a restarted subway network that normally handles about five million riders daily. Flooding in New York wasn't extensive because Irene's eye passed over Coney Island and Central Park.
Some service, however, remains suspended after the unprecedented shutdown of the largest transit system in the U.S.
Six of the Long Island Rail Road's 11 branches are running. But the Metropolitan Transportation Authority warns there may be some cancellations on some routes. As well, service remains suspended on the Metro-North Railroad — serving regions north of New York City, from Westchester to southern Connecticut — because of severe flooding and the after-effects of mudslides, and most New Jersey Transit trains also won't be running Monday.
Many cab drivers in New York were struggling to get moving in the morning as their vehicles were deep in water.
The New York Stock Exchange said it would be open for business on Monday, and the Sept. 11 memorial at the World Trade Center site didn't lose a single tree.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg stuck by his decision last last week to order 370,000 residents to evacuate their homes in low-lying areas, saying it was impossible to know just how powerful the storm would be. "We were just unwilling to risk the life of a single New Yorker," he said.
Following the cancellation of about 9,000 flights, airports in New York and around the Northeast were reopening to a backlog of hundreds of thousands of passengers.
But parts of the Northeast are still grappling with widespread power outages and people whose homes have been destroyed have been left stranded.
While financial damage estimates are preliminary at best — one consulting firm pegged total losses at about $7 billion US, with insured losses between $2 billion and $3 billion — the emotional toll after the first hurricane to make landfall in the continental U.S. since 2008 is incalcuable.
'The impact of this storm will be felt for some time'
"I want to underscore the impacts of this storm will be felt for some time and the recovery effort may last for weeks and months," President Barack Obama warned during an address Sunday night.
Officials have reported six deaths in North Carolina, four in Virginia, four in Pennsylvania, two in New York and one each in Connecticut, Maryland, Florida, New Jersey — most of them when trees crashed through roofs or onto cars, although one woman was swept away and feared drowned in a river. Authorities are trying to determine whether another death reported in New York is connected to the storm.
Hundreds of people remain out of their homes in Vermont, after they were told to leave before Irene swamped the landlocked state. Video posted on Facebook showed a 141-year-old covered bridge in Rockingham swept away by the roiling, muddy Williams River. In another video, an empty car somersaulted down a river in Bennington.
"It's pretty fierce. I've never seen anything like it," said Michelle Guevin, who spoke from a Brattleboro restaurant after leaving her home in nearby Newfane. She said the fast-moving Rock River was washing out the road to her house.
Green Mountain Power warned that Montpelier, the capital, could be flooded twice: once in the initial storm and again if the utility decides it must release water to save the earthen Marshfield Dam, about 30 kilometres up the Winooski River to the northeast.
"We don't want to do it. But if the dam were to be compromised, it would be a far greater effect," utility spokeswoman Dorothy Schnure said. Residents of 350 households were asked to leave as a precaution.
Officials are working to repair hundreds of damaged roads, and power companies picked through uprooted trees and reconnected lines.
Twenty homes on Long Island Sound in Connecticut were destroyed by churning surf. The torrential rain chased hundreds of people in upstate New York from their homes and closed 220 kilometres of the state's main highway.
Authorities in and around Easton, Pa., kept a close eye on the rising Delaware River. The National Weather Service forecast the river to crest there at 10 metres, well above normal flood stage.
In the South, authorities still were not sure how much damage had been done but expressed relief that it wasn't worse.
"Thank God it weakened a little bit," said Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who toured a hard-hit Richmond neighborhood where large, old-growth trees uprooted and crushed houses and automobiles.
Eastern Canada hit next
In Norfolk, most of the water had receded by Sunday. There was isolated flooding and downed trees, but nowhere near the damage officials predicted.
"We can't believe a hurricane came through here," city spokeswoman Lori Crouch said.
In North Carolina, where six people were killed, the infrastructure losses included the only road to the seven villages on Hatteras Island.
"Overall, the destruction is not as severe as I was worried it might be, but there is still lots and lots of destruction, and people's lives are turned upside down," Gov. Beverly Perdue said in Kill Devil Hills.
Irene was a major hurricane at one point, with winds higher than 175 km/h as it headed toward the U.S. By the time it hit New York, it was a tropical storm with 105 km/h winds. It lost the characteristics of a tropical storm and had slowed to 80 km/h by the time it reached Canada.
Chris Fogarty, director of the Canadian Hurricane Centre in Dartmouth, N.S., warned of flooding and wind damage in Eastern Canada and said the heaviest rainfall is expected in Quebec, where about 250,000 homes were without power at one point Sunday night.
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