2 million ordered to leave as Irene takes aim

JENNIFER PELTZ

MICHAEL BIESECKER

Asso­ci­ated Press

MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. — Whip­ping up trou­ble before ever reach­ing land, Hur­ri­cane Irene zeroed in Fri­day for a cat­a­strophic run up the East­ern Seaboard. More than 2 mil­lion peo­ple were told to move to safer places, and New York City ordered the nation’s biggest sub­way sys­tem shut down for the first time because of a nat­ural disaster.

As the storm’s out­er­most bands of wind and rain began to lash the Outer Banks of North Car­olina, author­i­ties in points far­ther north begged peo­ple to get out of harm’s way. The hur­ri­cane was still pack­ing 100 mph winds late Fri­day, and offi­cials in the North­east, not used to trop­i­cal weather, feared it could wreak devastation.

“Don’t wait. Don’t delay,” said Pres­i­dent Barack Obama, who decided to cut short his sum­mer vaca­tion by a day and return to Wash­ing­ton. “I can­not stress this highly enough: If you are in the pro­jected path of this hur­ri­cane, you have to take pre­cau­tions now.”

Senior hur­ri­cane spe­cial­ist Richard Pasch of the National Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter said there were signs that the hur­ri­cane may have weak­ened slightly, but strong winds con­tin­ued to extend 90 miles from its center.

The moment Sat­ur­day when the eye of the hur­ri­cane crosses land “is not as impor­tant as just being in that big swath,” Pasch said. “And unfor­tu­nately, it’s a big target.”

Hur­ri­cane warn­ings were issued from North Car­olina to New York, and watches were posted far­ther north, on the islands of Nan­tucket and Martha’s Vine­yard off Mass­a­chu­setts. Evac­u­a­tion orders cov­ered at least 2.3 mil­lion peo­ple, includ­ing 1 mil­lion in New Jer­sey, 315,000 in Mary­land, 300,000 in North Car­olina, 200,000 in Vir­ginia and 100,000 in Delaware.

“This is prob­a­bly the largest num­ber of peo­ple that have been threat­ened by a sin­gle hur­ri­cane in the United States,” said Jay Baker, a geog­ra­phy pro­fes­sor at Florida State University.

New York City ordered more than 300,000 peo­ple who live in flood-prone areas to leave, includ­ing Bat­tery Park City at the south­ern tip of Man­hat­tan, Coney Island and the beach­front Rock­aways. But it was not clear how many would do it, how they would get out or where they would go. Most New York­ers don’t have a car.

On top of that, the city said it would shut down the sub­ways and buses at noon Sat­ur­day, only a few hours after the first rain is expected to fall. The tran­sit sys­tem car­ries about 5 mil­lion peo­ple on an aver­age week­day, fewer on week­ends. It has been shut down sev­eral times before, includ­ing dur­ing a tran­sit work­ers’ strike in 2005 and after the Sept. 11 attacks a decade ago, but never for weather.

Late Fri­day, avi­a­tion offi­cials said they would close the five main New York City-area air­ports to arriv­ing domes­tic and inter­na­tional flights begin­ning at noon on Sat­ur­day. Many depar­tures also were canceled.

The air­ports are John F. Kennedy Inter­na­tional, Newark Lib­erty Inter­na­tional, LaGuardia, Stew­art Inter­na­tional and Teterboro.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said there was lit­tle author­i­ties could do to force peo­ple to leave.

“We do not have the man­power to go door-to-door and drag peo­ple out of their homes,” he said. “Nobody’s going to get fined. Nobody’s going to go to jail. But if you don’t fol­low this, peo­ple may die.”

Shel­ters were open­ing Fri­day after­noon, and the city was placed under its first hur­ri­cane warn­ing since 1985.

Tran­sit sys­tems in New Jer­sey and Philadel­phia also announced plans to shut down, and Wash­ing­ton declared a state of emer­gency. Bois­ter­ous New Jer­sey Gov. Chris Christie demanded peo­ple “get the hell off the beach” in Asbury Park and said: “You’re done. Do not waste any more time work­ing on your tan.”

Hun­dreds of thou­sands of air­line pas­sen­gers were grounded for the week­end. Jet­Blue Air­ways said it was scrub­bing about 880 flights between Sat­ur­day and Mon­day, most to and from hub air­ports in New York and Boston. Other air­lines said they were wait­ing to be more cer­tain about Irene’s path before announc­ing more cancellations.

Thou­sands of peo­ple were already with­out power. In Charleston, S.C., sev­eral peo­ple had to be res­cued after a tree fell on their car.

Defy­ing the orders, hardy hold­outs in North Car­olina put ply­wood on win­dows, gath­ered last-minute sup­plies and tied down boats. More than half the peo­ple who live on two remote islands, Hat­teras and Ocra­coke, had ignored orders to leave, and as time to change their minds ran short, offi­cials ordered dozens of body bags. The last ferry from Ocra­coke left at 4 p.m. Friday.

“I antic­i­pate we’re going to have peo­ple float­ing on the streets, and I don’t want to leave them lying there,” said Richard Mar­lin, fire chief for one of the seven vil­lages on Hat­teras. “The Coast Guard will either be pulling peo­ple off their roofs like in Kat­rina or we’ll be scrap­ing them out of their yards.”

Offi­cially, Irene was expected to make land­fall Sat­ur­day near More­head City, on the south­ern end of the Outer Banks, the bar­rier island chain. But long before the eye crossed the coast­line, the blus­tery winds and inter­mit­tent rains were already rak­ing the coast. By Fri­day evening 50 mph winds were mea­sured at Wrightsville Beach, N.C.

Some took to shel­ters for protection.

Susan Kinchen, her daugh­ter and 5-month-old grand­daugh­ter came to West Carteret High School with about 50 oth­ers. She said they didn’t feel safe in their trailer, and the Louisiana native was reminded of how her old trailer lost its roof to Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina, almost six years ago to the day, on Aug. 29, 2005.

“We live in a trailer with her,” said Kinchen, refer­ring to the infant. “I’m not tak­ing any chances.”

Hur­ri­cane cen­ter mete­o­rol­o­gist David Zelin­sky said ear­lier Fri­day that he expected the storm to arrive as a Cat­e­gory 2 or 3 hur­ri­cane. Later in the day, other fore­casts showed it would strike most of the coast as a Cat­e­gory 1. The scale runs from 1, barely stronger than a trop­i­cal storm, to a mon­strous 5. On Fri­day night, Irene was a Cat­e­gory 2.

The hur­ri­cane cen­ter said Irene could weaken into a trop­i­cal storm before reach­ing New Eng­land, but that even below hur­ri­cane strength it would be pow­er­ful and poten­tially destructive.

Regard­less of how fierce the storm is when it makes land­fall, the coast of North Car­olina was expected to get winds of more than 100 mph and waves per­haps as high as 11 feet, Zelin­sky said.

“This is a really large hur­ri­cane and it is dan­ger­ous,” he said. “Whether it is a Cat­e­gory 2 or 3 at land­fall, the effects are still going to be strong. I would encour­age peo­ple to take it seriously.”

Offi­cer Edward Mann was dri­ving down the nar­row streets of Nags Head look­ing for cars in dri­ve­ways, a tell­tale sign of peo­ple plan­ning to ride out the storm against all advice.

Bucky Doman­ski, 71, was work­ing in his garage when Mann walked in. He told the offi­cer he planned to stay. Mann handed Doman­ski a piece of paper with details about the county’s evac­u­a­tion order. It warned that hur­ri­cane force winds would flood the roads and there might not be power or water until well after the storm.

“You under­stand we can’t help you dur­ing the storm,” Mann said.

“I under­stand,” Doman­ski replied.

Later as heavy rains drenched Nags Head, Doman­ski had cooked his favorite din­ner of veal parme­san and spaghetti for his wife, Joy.

He planned to watch TV, but knows his satel­lite dish and power could go out any time. He has plenty of flash­lights and can­dles and plans to go to sleep early.

“So far every­thing is OK. The rain isn’t bad. I know it could change. But I just don’t think it’s going to be as bad as they say. I’m hope­ful,” he said.

After the Outer Banks, the next tar­get for Irene was the Hamp­ton Roads region of south­east Vir­ginia, a jagged net­work of inlets and rivers that floods eas­ily. Emer­gency offi­cials have said the region is more threat­ened by storm surge, the high waves that accom­pany a storm, than wind. Gas sta­tions there were low on fuel Fri­day, and gro­cery stores scram­bled to keep water and bread on the shelves.

In Delaware, Gov. Jack Markell ordered an evac­u­a­tion of coastal areas.

“We could be open tonight for busi­ness, but there’s a very fine line between doing the right thing and putting our staff at risk,” said Alex Hei­den­berger, whose fam­ily owns Mango Mike’s restau­rant in Bethany Beach. He expects to lose $40,000 to $50,000 in busi­ness. “It’s not so much we’re wor­ried about the storm com­ing tonight, but we want to give them a chance to get out of town and get their affairs in order.”

Offi­cials at Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Cen­ter in Wash­ing­ton said they were speed­ing the trans­fer of their last remain­ing patients to the National Naval Med­ical Cen­ter in Bethesda, Md. The trans­fer had been planned for Sunday.

In Baltimore’s Fells Point neigh­bor­hood, one of the city’s old­est water­front neigh­bor­hoods, peo­ple filled sand­bags and placed them at the entrances to build­ings. A few miles away at the Port of Bal­ti­more, vehi­cles and cranes con­tin­ued to unload huge cargo ships that were rush­ing to offload and get away from the storm.

In New York, the Mets post­poned games sched­uled for Sat­ur­day and Sun­day with the vis­it­ing Atlanta Braves. The Jets and Giants moved their pre­sea­son NFL game up to 2 p.m. Sat­ur­day from 7 p.m., but then post­poned it until Monday.

And in Atlantic City, N.J., all 11 casi­nos announced plans to shut down Fri­day, only the third time that has hap­pened in the 33-year his­tory of legal­ized gam­bling in that state.

“I like gam­bling, but you don’t play with this,” Pear­son Cal­len­der said as he waited for a Grey­hound bus out of town. “Peo­ple are say­ing this is an act of God. I just need to get home to be with my family.”

Bobby Plough was stand­ing out­side his restau­rant, the Cypress Creek Grill, in Eliz­a­beth City, N.C., putting sheet metal in front of the pic­ture win­dows in New that nor­mally offer an unob­structed view of the boat launch.

Plough moved to the har­bor town on the Pasquotank River in north­east­ern North Car­olina from Cor­pus Christi, Texas, 18 years ago. Water has never made it inside his restau­rant but he wasn’t tak­ing any chances.

“Hur­ri­canes are just a way of life here,” he said. “You deal with them and move on.”

Posted by AP News on Aug 27 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.