NEW YORK – Vermont struggled with its worst flooding in 80 years and reconnaissance teams scoured Massachusetts to assess the devastation yesterday after tropical storm Irene slammed an already soaked New England with torrential rain.
Spared Irene’s worst fury, New York City went back to work yesterday despite a partially crippled mass transit system and power cuts that left 100,000 customers in the metropolitan area without electricity.
Overall, some 5.5 million homes and businesses were still without power from North Carolina to Maine, and utility companies said it could take days to restore electricity in more accessible areas, or up to weeks in the hardest-hit regions.
“It’s going to take time to recover from a storm of this magnitude,” President Barack Obama said. “The effects are still being felt across much of the country, including in New England and states like Vermont where there’s been an enormous amount of flooding . . . I’m going to make sure that Fema (the federal emergency management agency) and other agencies are doing everything in their power to help people on the ground.”
Air travel at New York City’s three major area airports slowly resumed and financial markets operated normally, although volumes were low. New York City subways resumed service, though many commuter and Amtrak lines were disrupted due to tracks that were flooded or blocked with fallen trees and debris.
At least 21 people died in the United States, three in the Dominican Republic and one in Puerto Rico as a result of the storm.
While Irene failed to produce the devastation many had expected when New York City pre-emptively ordered unprecedented evacuations and a shutdown of its mass transit system on Saturday, it still left hundreds of thousands of homeowners with flood damage, especially in New Jersey.
Irene is expected to have caused substantial property losses, though figures are still hard to come by because of uncertainty about wind damage.
The costly cleanup will also further strain budgets of state and local governments where economies have not recovered from the recession.
Vermont was battling the state’s worst flooding since 1927 after Irene swept through as a tropical storm late on Sunday. It dumped huge amounts of rain in New Jersey and other eastern seaboard states on its way up to Canada, where it was downgraded to post-tropical status over sparsely populated land.
“Things are bad throughout the state and we are just starting the recovery process in the light of day,” said Robert Stirewalt, a spokesman for the Vermont Emergency Management Agency. “It is too early to say what the damage will be as we assess it and we hope it won’t be more extensive than last night indicated.”
One person in Vermont was killed after being swept into a river in the mountainous, landlocked state, which rarely sees tropical storms.
While the sun came out again yesterday, officials worried that more damage could still be done.
“The bigger rivers haven’t crested yet because the smaller brooks feed into them,” Governor Peter Shumlin said. “It means more flooding. We continue to be challenged here.”
In Massachusetts, teams including national guard members were scouring the state to assess the flooding. Business, meanwhile, returned to normal in Boston, but some train services south were cancelled.
In Southbridge, Massachusetts, a town employee was electrocuted by a fallen power line while leaving the house, marking the first storm-related death in the state.
“It’s a tragic reminder that folks beginning the clean-up process need to do so safely, said Scott MacLeod, spokesman for the state emergency management agency.
– (Reuters)
God sending us a message, says Bachmann
MIAMI – For Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, Hurricane Irene and last week’s earthquake in the eastern United States were a message from God that Washington needs to change its policies.
Even as Irene was beginning its destructive course up the east coast over the weekend, killing 21 people and causing widespread flooding and power cuts, Ms Bachmann told an audience of retired people in Poinciana, Florida, on Saturday that the hurricane was an “act of God” that Washington should heed.
The Minnesota congresswoman, who has gained media prominence for her fiery attacks on President Barack Obama and her opposition to “big government”, recalled that Washington and the east had already felt a 5.8 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday.
“Washington DC, you’d think by now they’d get the message. An earthquake, a hurricane. Are you listening? The American people have done everything they can, and now it’s time for an act of God and we’re getting it,” she said, drawing some laughs from her audience.
“Of course she was saying it in jest,” Bachmann spokeswoman Alice Stewart said.
Ms Bachmann is a favourite of the Tea Party movement and of religious social conservatives, but recent Republican presidential contender polls have shown her lagging behind Texas governor Rick Perry and moderate Mitt Romney, who appeals to the party’s business wing. – (Reuters)