Getting your player ready...
WASHINGTON — Forget the wind and fury. Hurricane Irene’s most worrisome weapon is water.
There’s just way too much of it: storm surge pushing seawater ashore and heavy rainfall causing flooding. That’s not unusual with hurricanes, but with Irene there are a couple of added factors that are making meteorologists nervous.
This massive, slow-moving hurricane is forecast to soak an already drenched Northeast and may come ashore at a time when tides are unusually high, making storm surge even worse — 4 to 11 feet with waves on top, forecasters say.
“Water is the No. 1 killer,” retired National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield said Friday. “That’s going to cause the greatest loss of life.”
