Tropical storm crosses into Canada
August 30, 2011, Tuesday
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THE storm that had been Hurricane Irene has crossed into Canada but isn't yet through with the United States, where flood waters threatened Vermont towns and New Yorkers feared a commuting nightmare as their transit system, shut down ahead of the storm, was slowly restored.
The storm left millions without power across much of the Eastern Seaboard, left more than two dozen people dead and forced airlines to cancel about 9,000 flights.
Many of the worst effects arose from rains that fell inland, not the highly anticipated storm surge along the coasts. Residents of Pennsylvania and New Jersey nervously watched waters rise as hours of rain funneled into rivers and creeks. Narrow ribbons of water turned into raging torrents in Vermont and upstate New York late on Sunday, taking tree branches, cars and parts of bridges with them.
"This is not over," President Barack Obama said from the Rose Garden.
Hundreds of Vermonters were told to leave their homes after Irene dumped several inches of rain on the landlocked state. A video posted online showed a 141-year-old covered bridge in Rockingham swept away by the Williams River. In another video, an empty car somersaulted down a river in Bennington.
Green Mountain Power decided against flooding Montpelier, the capital, to save the earthen Marshfield Dam, about 32 kilometers up the Winooski River to the northeast. Water levels had stabilized yesterday morning but engineers were continuing to monitor the situation, said spokeswoman Dorothy Schnure.
Residents in 350 households were asked to leave as a precaution.
Nearly 5 million homes and businesses lost power at some point during the storm. Lights started to come back on for many on Sunday, though it was expected to take days for electricity to be fully restored.
Only about 50,000 power customers in New York City went dark, but people there had something else to worry about: getting to work yesterday.
The metropolitan area's transit system, shut down because of weather for the first time in its history, was taking many hours to get back into service. Bus and subway passengers were warned to expect long lines and long waits.
The commuter rail service to Long Island and New Jersey was being partially restored, but the train service to northern suburbs was suspended because of flooding and mudslides.
Airports in New York and around the Northeast were reopening to a backlog of hundreds of thousands of passengers whose flights were canceled over the weekend.
Some of New York's yellow cabs were up to their wheel wells in water, and water rushed over a marina near the New York Mercantile Exchange. But the New York flooding was not extensive.
The New York Stock Exchange opened for business yesterday, and the September 11 memorial at the World Trade Center site didn't lose a single tree.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended his decision to order 370,000 residents to evacuate 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.
Irene had at one time been a major hurricane, with winds higher than 177 kilometers per hour as it headed toward the US. It was a tropical storm with 105kph winds by the time it hit New York. It lost the characteristics of a tropical storm and had slowed to 80kph by the time it reached Canada.
Chris Fogarty, director of the Canadian Hurricane Centre, warned of flooding and wind damage in eastern Canada and said the heaviest rainfall was expected in Quebec, where about 250,000 homes were without power.
At least 25 people died in the US, most of them when trees crashed through roofs or onto cars.
Irene was the first hurricane to make landfall in the continental US since 2008, and came almost six years to the day after Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005.
The storm left millions without power across much of the Eastern Seaboard, left more than two dozen people dead and forced airlines to cancel about 9,000 flights.
Many of the worst effects arose from rains that fell inland, not the highly anticipated storm surge along the coasts. Residents of Pennsylvania and New Jersey nervously watched waters rise as hours of rain funneled into rivers and creeks. Narrow ribbons of water turned into raging torrents in Vermont and upstate New York late on Sunday, taking tree branches, cars and parts of bridges with them.
"This is not over," President Barack Obama said from the Rose Garden.
Hundreds of Vermonters were told to leave their homes after Irene dumped several inches of rain on the landlocked state. A video posted online showed a 141-year-old covered bridge in Rockingham swept away by the Williams River. In another video, an empty car somersaulted down a river in Bennington.
Green Mountain Power decided against flooding Montpelier, the capital, to save the earthen Marshfield Dam, about 32 kilometers up the Winooski River to the northeast. Water levels had stabilized yesterday morning but engineers were continuing to monitor the situation, said spokeswoman Dorothy Schnure.
Residents in 350 households were asked to leave as a precaution.
Nearly 5 million homes and businesses lost power at some point during the storm. Lights started to come back on for many on Sunday, though it was expected to take days for electricity to be fully restored.
Only about 50,000 power customers in New York City went dark, but people there had something else to worry about: getting to work yesterday.
The metropolitan area's transit system, shut down because of weather for the first time in its history, was taking many hours to get back into service. Bus and subway passengers were warned to expect long lines and long waits.
The commuter rail service to Long Island and New Jersey was being partially restored, but the train service to northern suburbs was suspended because of flooding and mudslides.
Airports in New York and around the Northeast were reopening to a backlog of hundreds of thousands of passengers whose flights were canceled over the weekend.
Some of New York's yellow cabs were up to their wheel wells in water, and water rushed over a marina near the New York Mercantile Exchange. But the New York flooding was not extensive.
The New York Stock Exchange opened for business yesterday, and the September 11 memorial at the World Trade Center site didn't lose a single tree.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended his decision to order 370,000 residents to evacuate 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.
Irene had at one time been a major hurricane, with winds higher than 177 kilometers per hour as it headed toward the US. It was a tropical storm with 105kph winds by the time it hit New York. It lost the characteristics of a tropical storm and had slowed to 80kph by the time it reached Canada.
Chris Fogarty, director of the Canadian Hurricane Centre, warned of flooding and wind damage in eastern Canada and said the heaviest rainfall was expected in Quebec, where about 250,000 homes were without power.
At least 25 people died in the US, most of them when trees crashed through roofs or onto cars.
Irene was the first hurricane to make landfall in the continental US since 2008, and came almost six years to the day after Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005.
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