Mayor Michael Bloomberg says tidal & storm surge from #Hurricane #Irene will bring flooding to NYC ~ t.co/G6YM0w3via @cnnbrk
Live blog: Storm blamed for two deathsAre you there? Share your story with iReport and be a part of CNN's coverage. Hurricane Irene continues to crawl north after making landfall Saturday morning in North Carolina. The storm is expected to head up the East Coast from Virginia to Maine, bringing hurricane-force winds, heavy rain, flooding and widespread power outages. President Barack Obama warned that Irene could be a "hurricane of historic proportions." Follow the latest developments here, or read the full CNN Wire story: [Update 12:19 p.m.] A man feeding livestock in North Carolina was crushed by a tree limb Saturday morning amid Hurricane Irene's high winds, an emergency official in Nash County told CNN. On Friday, a man in the state's Onslow County died of a heart attack on Friday as he put plywood over his windows in preparation for the storm, a state emergency spokesman said. [Update 11:54 a.m.] "Irene remains a large and dangerous storm," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said. "People need to take it seriously. People need to be prepared." [Update 11:36 a.m.] Bill Read, director of the National Hurricane Center, said forecasters don't expect Hurricane Irene to strengthen any more as it rumbles up the East Coast. [Update 11:01 a.m.] Hurricane Irene is battering eastern North Carolina and tropical storm conditions are spreading northward along the Delmarva coast, the National Hurricane Center said in its latest advisory. The Category 1 hurricane has sustained winds of 85 miles per hour and is moving northeast at 15 miles per hour, according to the 11 a.m. ET advisory. It is 50 miles west of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and 120 miles south of Norfolk, Virginia. The center of the storm will move across northeastern North Carolina during the afternoon. The hurricane is forecast to move over the Mid-Atlantic coast on Saturday night and over southern New England on Sunday. [Update 10:46 a.m.] President Obama added Rhode Island to the list of states under a federal emergency declaration. [Updated 10:34 a.m.] New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Saturday it's "conceivable" in downtown Manhattan there will be no electricity after Hurricane Irene blows through. He said that mass transit, which will be halted at noon on Saturday because of Hurricane Irene, is not likely to be fully back by Monday morning. [Updated 10:14 a.m.] North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue said Hurricane Irene "pounded the state all night," but the force isn't as great as originally forecast. She said there are high winds and flooding problems. More than 227,000 homes and businesses have lost power, she said. Irene has affected transportation in the eastern part of the state; 10 major roads have closed and airports have shut down. Perdue also said the eastern counties will see up to 9 inches of rain. "Please stay inside," she said to the people in the storm-affected region of the state. [Updated 9:36 a.m.] New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg reminded people that mass transit is not going to be available in the city starting at noon. "If you have to leave, you have to start right now," he said. [Updated 9:33 a.m.] Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Hurricane Irene is now beginning to move up the Atlantic seaboard as expected and "the window of preparation is quickly closing." She urged people in the path of the storm to make sure they have enough supplies for a few days. [Updated 9:09 a.m.] Several inches of standing water were covering streets and parking lots in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, after the worst of the storm had passed over, CNN's John Zarrella reported. [Updated 9:07 a.m.] President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in New Hampshire and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local efforts to respond to Hurricane Irene. Earlier, Obama declared emergencies in Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts. [Updated 8:58 a.m.] North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue said tourists and many residents have left the hurricane-slammed region of her state, but she said "some hangers-on who want to see the storm" remain. [Updated 8:42 a.m.] A tornado warning is in effect for Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, Virginia, until 9 a.m. [Updated 8:16 a.m.] Radar showed heavy rain falling throughout eastern North Carolina at a rate of 5 inches or more per hour. Outflow clouds from the hurricane stretched from southern Maine to northeastern Georgia. [Updated 8 a.m.] The hurricane reached land five miles northeast of Cape Lookout and 60 miles southwest of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. It had maximum sustained winds of 85 mph and was moving 14 mph. [Updated 7:51 a.m.] Hurricane Irene has made landfall in eastern North Carolina, the National Hurricane Center says in its latest advisory. [Updated 7:02 a.m.] President Barack Obama has declared a state of emergency in New Jersey and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local efforts to respond to Hurricane Irene. [Updated 5:40 a.m.] CNN affiliate WITN says damage from possible tornadoes has been reported in Beaufort and Tyrrell counties in North Carolina. [Updated 3:32 a.m. Saturday] Irene weakened to a Category 1 hurricane Saturday morning, carrying maximum sustained winds of 90 mph, forecasters said. As of 3 a.m. ET, Irene was about 60 miles south of Cape Lookout, North Carolina, moving north-northeast at 14 mph, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. [Updated 3:17 a.m. Saturday] President Obama declares state of emergency in Connecticut and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local efforts due to Hurricane Irene. [Updated 2:50 a.m. Saturday] Hurricane Irene was 85 miles south of Cape Lookout, North Carolina, as of 2 a.m. Saturday, forecasters said. It carried maximum sustained winds of 100 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. [Updated 1:05 a.m. Saturday] As of 1 a.m. ET Saturday, Hurricane Irene moved closer to the North Carolina coast and was about 105 miles south of Cape Lookout, North Carolina. It carried maximum sustained winds of 100 mph and was moving north-northeast at 13 mph, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. [Updated 11:00 p.m. Friday] New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said cats and dogs would be welcome at the emergency shelters set up for people fleeing the storm. “If you have your pet bring them with you. … No one should be staying in their homes in an endangered area because they feel like they can't bring their pets with them," Christie said. Mark Lavorgna, a mayoral spokesman, confirmed that pets are allowed in the 91 emergency evacuation shelters set up in preparation for Hurricane Irene. But “we strongly, strongly argue against it,” he said. “We urge people to bring their pets to friends or familiy’s houses or shelters outside Zone A, but if people need to bring them they can,” said Lavorgna. “They should come leashed and muzzled.” [Updated 10:36 p.m. Friday] North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue told CNN's Anderson Cooper that the state was prepared but cautious. "We urge people to just be really aware. It doesn't sound like a huge storm right now - 50 mile-an-hour winds - but we think it's going to stay over our state 10 or 12 hours and that's where the problem becomes," she said. Perdue then referenced reports of a bowl-shaped part of the low-lying coastline that is especially vulnerable to high waters. "That bowl that you were talking about earlier full of water, it's going to dump somewhere, and when it dumps there's going to be a surge of water and who knows what'll happen," Perdue said. [Updated 10:23 p.m. Friday] The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island will be closed Saturday through Monday because of Hurricane Irene, according to Jane Ahern, public affairs chief of the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island. All units of the Gateway National Recreation Area, Governor’s Island and all National Park sites in Manhattan will be closed to visitors Saturday and Sunday, with a chance of opening Monday depending on storm damage and a safety assessment. “The safety of our visitors and employees is our top priority at this time,” said National Parks of New York Harbor Commissioner Maria Burkes. “Our park employees are currently working diligently to protect park resources per our Emergency Response Plans.” [Updated 10:05 p.m. Friday] Russell Honoré, the general famous for his management of the federal government's military response to Hurricane Katrina, told CNN's Piers Morgan Friday night that local authorities were right in calling for mass evacuations in low-lying areas along the Eastern Seaboard. “I think we have had a cultural shift in government because, working with hurricanes for about the last 10 to 12 years while I was in uniform, local governments and governors were reluctant to make that decision to evacuate because of the impact [of what would happen] if they evacuated people and the storm didn’t come," he said. "But the options of not evacuating people, with the warnings that we have now and the accuracy of prediction, (it) needs to be done,” Honoré said. [Updated 9:53 p.m. Friday] Maryland's Martin O'Malley was one of several East Coast governors to declare a state of emergency in advance of the storm. Residents of low-lying areas in the state were told to evacuate ahead of what the governor called "a very dangerous and potentially deadly hurricane." The governor said Friday that "anybody that thinks that this is a normal hurricane and that they can just stick it out is being both selfish, stupid and also diverting essential public safety assets away from the task at hand, which is safeguarding lives and getting people out of the way." [Updated 9:40 p.m. Friday] The Port Authority has announced the closing of five airports - JFK International, Newark Liberty International, LaGuardia, Teterboro and Stewart International - to all arriving passenger flights, international and domestic, starting at noon Saturday. |
