The most powerful hurricane to threaten the Eastern Seaboard in almost two decades roared up the East Coast on Saturday, bringing heavy rains and high winds that plunged homes into darkness, turned trees into projectiles and caused at least seven deaths.
After making landfall in North Carolina, with gusts up to 115 mph, Hurricane Irene continued its fierce and relentless march north toward New York City and New England. Governors and mayors spent much of Saturday pleading with people to get out of the storm’s way.
The storm arrived at day’s first light, at a point appropriately named Cape Lookout on the Outer Banks. As the hurricane spread beyond North Carolina, the most densely populated stretch in the country all but ground to a halt.
Airlines canceled 9,000 flights along the East Coast, Amtrak stopped all trains from Boston south and Greyhound suspended bus service between Richmond, Va., and Boston for the rest of the weekend.
The subway stopped running in New York City. The three airports serving the Washington area remained open Saturday evening, but most flights had been scratched. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge was closed at 7:35 p.m. because of severe winds and unsafe driving conditions.
Power outages increased by the hour as winds toppled trees and power lines. More than 800,000 residential and business customers of Dominion Virginia Power were without electricity at 8:30 p.m. EDT, said Daisy Pridgen, a company spokesman. The Richmond area and southeastern Virginia were hit hardest.
In Maryland, about 85,000 customers were without power. Outages were expected to increase exponentially as the storm grew in ferocity through the night.
“This is a very dangerous time,” Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell said around 8 p.m., warning there could be tidal flooding in Hampton Roads with a storm surge of at least eight feet.
Three deaths in Virginia were among at least seven that were linked to the storm. An 11-year-old boy died in Newport News when a tree fell on his apartment. The Newport News Daily Press reported that he was in bed beside his mother, who was not injured. Falling trees also caused the deaths of two other people in Brunswick and Chesterfield counties, though no details were available.
The full extent of the damage won’t be known until after the hurricane weakens, sometime late Sunday.
In Norfolk, as Irene heralded itself with sheets of rain and howling gusts of wind that peaked around 60 mph, a massive water main break on a city street erupted about 4 p.m. and sprayed water like a geyser at least 30 feet in the air. WAVY Channel 10 news reported that some residents had no water, particularly in low-lying areas of the city.
Even before Irene made landfall, President Barack Obama signed emergency declarations for nine states, allowing the federal government to pay some costs and assist in cleanup.
Cities up and down the East Coast were particularly vulnerable to its fury.
Houses in Virginia Beach, Va., were sliced open, and some empty homes were looted.
And in New York City, where 370,000 people were ordered to evacuate, the city girded for the storm’s crippling impact. Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned that high-rise buildings were likely to suspend elevator service so that no one would be trapped during a power outage. A storm surge is likely to send water streaming through the streets of Lower Manhattan and Wall Street, and electricity would be cut before that happens.
Officials had been making increasingly dire predictions about Irene for days, and even veterans of other hurricanes scrambled to get out of the storm’s path.
More than 2 million people were ordered to evacuate along the coast, and some shelters were overwhelmed.
McDonnell said that more than 3,000 people have been taken in at 74 shelters around Virginia. Two dozen are in Hampton Roads alone.
Hampton Roads served as an early warning of the storm’s strength, even though it had been downgraded a notch to a Category 1 hurricane.
Five homes were severely damaged in the Sandbridge Beach area south of the city – with the roofs blown off two and collapsed walls in others – in what fire officials suspect was a small tornado or strong microburst, said Battalion Chief Tim Riley of the Virginia Beach Fire Department. The homes were empty because occupants had heeded the mandatory evacuation order, he said.
Police vehicles swarmed into the area after several people reported looters in the damaged homes. Two people were arrested, accused of looting in the area, said city spokeswoman Mary Hancock. More details were not available.
As the storm crept north, 500 miles wide at its core, it seemed to grow more menacing.
In Rehoboth Beach, Del., where streets began to flood by 4:30 p.m., it was difficult to see more than 150 yards on the beach by late afternoon. A stinging rain fell as winds blew foam and sand onto the boardwalk.
Many residents awoke to warnings at 7:15 a.m., when a storm siren echoed through the streets. It was followed by an announcement that the city was under mandatory evacuation, calling for residents to leave the coastal area as soon as possible.
“It scared the 1/8heck 3/8 out of me,” said Al Morris, who has been coming to Rehoboth for 40 years.
The alarm, spread by loudspeakers positioned around town, sounded two more times before nightfall as winds blew a thick layer of sand onto the boardwalk. Large sections of roadways were covered in standing water.
Due to the worsening conditions, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell announced a driving ban in Sussex, Kent and New Castle counties. McDonnell said the Virginia National Guard had been mobilized, and he had authorized local jurisdictions to impose overnight curfews. Several Hampton Roads jurisdictions, including Newport News, have done so.
With beach communities in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware largely evacuated, people living inland in Eastern Shore communities began to receive the same message.
“We are supposed to evacuate in a few hours now,” Sabine Boggs said. “Salisbury City 1/8Md. 3/8 police drove down our street with lights flashing and a PA system announcement that a shelter has been set up at the civic center. All the garden furniture is stuffed in our sunroom, and the treadmill has become a good plant stand.” Even as the winds toppled stop signs and pushed slender trees nearly horizontal, authorities had to coax thrill-seekers away from the beaches. They issued dire warnings to residents stubbornly staying behind that they would not be rescued.
A team of city police, beach patrol officers and Maryland state troopers took the names of next of kin from about 300 Ocean City, Md., residents who refused to budge. They would be on their own, they were told.
Lifeguards ordered daredevil surfers to get out of the water as winds reached gale force.
Willie Long, a U.S. Postal Service mail carrier in Virginia Beach, went about his usual rounds, though wetter than usual, somewhat to the surprise of residents. “They have two views: One is, ‘You’re crazy.’ The other is, ‘Kudos,’ ” Long said.
Staff writers Carol Morello, Ashley Halsey III, Miranda S. Spivack, Nikita Stewart, Brian Rosenthal, Anita Kumar, John Wagner, Robert Samuels and Mary Pat Flaherty contributed to this report.
