Flood waters surround homes on state Highway 304 in Mesic, N.C. Hurricane Irene knocked out power and piers in North Carolina, clobbered Virginia with wind and churned up the coast Saturday to confront cities more accustomed to snowstorms than tropical storms.NAGS HEAD, N.C. – Still menacing Hurricane Irene knocked out power and piers in North Carolina, clobbered Virginia with wind and churned up the coast Saturday to confront cities more accustomed to snowstorms than tropical storms. New York City emptied its streets and subways and waited with an eerie quiet.
With most of its transportation machinery shut down, the Eastern Seaboard spent the day nervously watching the storm’s march across a swath of the nation inhabited by 65 million people. The hurricane had an enormous wingspan – 500 miles, its outer reaches stretching from the Carolinas to Cape Cod – and packed wind gusts of 115 mph.
At least 1.5 million homes and businesses were without power. While it was too early to assess the full threat, Irene was blamed for six deaths.
The hurricane stirred up 7-foot waves, and forecasters warned of storm-surge danger on the coasts of Virginia and Delaware, along the Jersey Shore and in New York Harbor and Long Island Sound. In the Northeast, drenched by rain this summer, the ground is already saturated, raising the risk of flooding.
Floodwaters from the Albemarle Sound rise over a minigolf course at dusk Saturday on the Outer Banks in Nags Head, N.C. Hurricane Irene knocked out power and piers in North Carolina, clobbered Virginia with wind and churned up the coast Saturday to confront cities more accustomed to snowstorms than tropical storms.Irene made its official landfall just after first light near Cape Lookout, N.C., at the southern end of the Outer Banks, the ribbon of land that bows out into the Atlantic Ocean. Shorefront hotels and houses were lashed with waves. Two piers were destroyed, and at least one hospital was forced to run on generator power.