Fierce Flooding 'an ongoing concern' amid Irene's destruction

[Pastor Dale Morgan]

Perilous Times and Climate Change

Fierce Flooding 'an ongoing concern' amid Irene's destruction

By the CNN Wire Staff
August 29, 2011 1:36 p.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

    * 600,000 customers without power in Virginia and North Carolina, utility says
    * More than 8,500 in Red Cross shelters on the East Coast
    * Death confirmed in Vermont; toll is now at least 24 dead in nine states
    * NYSE opens on time; New York City subway service resumes

Brattleboro, Vermont (CNN) -- As a much-weakened Irene entered Canada, it left parts of the U.S. East Coast still grappling Monday with dangerous floodwaters, widespread power outages and stranded residents.

At least 24 deaths in nine states were blamed on Irene, which fizzled to a post-tropical cyclone and headed over eastern Canada on Monday.

Flooding was ongoing, particularly in New England, said Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"A lot of the activities are moving into recovery phases, but we are still very concerned about the flooding," he told reporters in a conference call.

Southern states were affected primarily by power outages and the effects of storm surge, particularly on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where Highway 12 had been chopped into pieces in several place by the pounding surf.

"Hurricane Irene, from our vantage point, was a very well-behaved, New England breed of hurricane," said David Vallee, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service in charge of the Northeastern forecast center in Taunton, Massachusetts. "Lots of rain west of the track."

Rainfall reached 15 inches in some places, he said. The fact that much of the affected area was already heavily saturated by rainfall in the weeks prior to Irene made things worse, he said.

As of Monday morning, moderate to major flooding was occurring from New York into the Connecticut Valley, through much of northern New Hampshire "and a good chunk of Vermont."

Many of the river crests set records, he said.

Though the flash flood threat had largely abated, some of the larger rivers had not yet crested, he said.

Asked how FEMA has changed its approach to handling disasters six years after Hurricane Katrina laid waste to much of the Gulf Coast, Fugate said that the agency now has more authority to act prior to receiving a request from a governor. That translates into "not having to wait" until the impact of the storm is clear. "We have to act quickly and be prepared to support that."

About 3 million customers were without power along Irene's path.

In Washington, President Barack Obama vowed, "We will make sure folks have all the support they need." He added that "it will take time" to recover.

They may need that support from North Carolina through New England, where a number of homes, businesses, roads and bridges were torn apart by floodwaters.

Some of the worst flooding since 1927 ravaged Vermont's normally tranquil countryside, turning babbling brooks into turbulent rivers and knocking homes from their foundations.

In Wilmington, Vermont, a young woman who had been standing near a river was swept away by the water. Her body was recovered Monday.

In all, 260 roads were affected, many of them underwater, Vermont's Emergency Management Agency said Monday.

Four to six covered bridges were destroyed and others were washed out, it said.

In the capital city of Montpelier, water crested overnight at 19.5 feet, just shy of the 20-foot prediction, but levels throughout the state were receding Monday.

The emergency management headquarters flooded overnight and was evacuated and relocated from Waterbury to Burlington, approximately 20 miles away.

"We never see this sort of thing in Vermont," said CNN iReporter Jesse Stone of White River Junction, where the covered bridge was flooded. "For the people who are saying that Irene was disappointing, maybe, because they didn't get the sort of wind and damage they expected, I just want to remind them that, in places like Vermont, we really got it pretty hard."

In North Carolina, more than 340,000 customers were without power Monday, down from more than 440,000 on Sunday night, the state's division of emergency management said.

Dominion Power reported more than 600,000 customers were without power in Virginia and northern North Carolina. The company predicted it would restore power to 95% of those customers by Friday.

As many as 200 residents were isolated and without power Monday on Ocracoke Island, near where Irene had first made landfall as a hurricane on Saturday. Supply transport to Ocracoke was hampered as ocean waves dislodged large chunks of a key roadway.

Dunes at Ocracoke's northern end "have apparently been spread across the road, so no one yet knows how badly the pavement is damaged," said Clayton Gaskill, manager of Ocracoke's tiny FM radio station WOVV.

And in Prattsville, New York, seven Brooklyn families who thought they had escaped the storm's wrath were stranded Monday in the Catskill Mountains after bridges crumbled around them.

"We're sitting in one room, and it's a horrible situation and there is no way out," said Irina Noveck, who was stuck along with 22 other adults and children. "Kids are getting scared, food is getting spoiled."

In all, more than 8,500 people awoke Monday in Red Cross shelters up and down the East Coast, a spokesman said.

But life along much of the East Coast returned to normal Monday, as subway services resumed on all 22 lines in New York City, and the three major airports in the area reopened after thousands of flights were canceled over the weekend. Flight schedules were expected to normalize slowly and passengers were urged to check with their airlines before going to the airport.

Still, many workers appeared to have taken Monday off: Penn Station was largely empty during what is usually the morning rush.

Amtrak had some service in the Northeast, but many trains were canceled.

The New York Stock Exchange opened on time.

Across Pennsylvania, 225,000 customers were without power Monday, according to Cathy Engel, a spokeswoman for PECO, which serves the Greater Philadelphia region. That was down from a total of nearly 500,000, she said.

The U.S. government estimated that the cost from wind damage alone will exceed $1 billion. Downed power lines left more than 4 million customers without electricity during Irene's weekend journey up the East Coast.

"The impacts of this storm will be felt for some time, and the recovery effort will last for weeks or longer," Obama said Sunday evening from Washington.

In New Jersey -- which had called for the evacuation of more than 1 million people from the shore -- initial fears about coastal flooding gave way to fresh concerns about inland flooding, as an array of rivers and creeks eclipsed flood stages and continued to rise Monday.

That left residents like Guy Pascarello, whose family's Secaucus home of 40 years was declared uninhabitable after it became inundated by 3-foot-high waters, trying to figure out what to do next.

"This is all new ground," Pascarello said. "The good news is that it's just stuff. This is a home and we love our home, but it's just things."

Even locations well inland, such as Princeton Junction, about halfway between New York City and Princeton, saw 12-foot waters that covered roads and bridges, resident Edward Picco said Sunday.

In Jersey City, CNN iReporter Adam Rice shot video showing that, during the height of the storm, water on the boardwalk rose to knee level.

Along the shore in Long Beach, New York, water poured beneath the boardwalk and into the city's downtown.

Outside Philadelphia, waters climbed to street-sign levels in Darby, with the water sending "couches, furniture, all kinds of stuff floating down the street," Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said. Two buildings collapsed in Philadelphia, Nutter told reporters, but no one was hurt.

Officials reported six deaths in North Carolina, four in Virginia, four in Pennsylvania, three in New York, two each in Connecticut and New Jersey and one each in Maryland, Florida and Vermont.

In North Carolina, 2,500 people on Hatteras Island who did not heed calls for them to leave before Irene struck were without a way to leave on Monday. Emergency ferry service was expected to begin later in the day. On the island, Highway 12 was chopped into pieces by the pounding surf.

In Connecticut, Governor Dannel P. Malloy said Monday that nearly 700,000 customers were without power. Though power was restored to another 220,000 customers, some of the remaining number were going to have to wait for a week or more "because there has been extensive damage to the system."

He called on residents to limit their use of cell phones, since a number of cell sites were running out of backup power.

The U.S. Navy was sending three warships to help with search-and-rescue efforts along the coast.

CNN's Gary Tuchman, Paul Courson, Jake Carpenter, Mark J. Norman, Poppy Harlow, Divina Mims, Rob Marciano, Rose Arce, Jeanne Meserve, Chris Boyette, David Mattingly, Susan Candiotti, Greg Botelho, Phil Gast, Ed Payne, Ric Ward and Justine Redman contributed to this report.