Friday, August 26, 2011

US northeast prepares for biggest hurricane threat since 1985

Esmé E. Deprez and Henry Goldman in Bloomberg News: ...New York City began evacuating the sick and elderly from low-lying areas as Hurricane Irene threatened to inflict the worst destruction in the Northeast since Hurricane Gloria in 1985. New York, New Jersey and Delaware prepared for the possibility of mass evacuations. The storm may affect more than 65 million people from North Carolina to Maine, or 1 in 5 Americans, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered hospital patients and people in nursing homes and senior housing in coastal areas moved to higher ground. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the busiest U.S. transit system, said bus and subway service may be suspended tomorrow as the storm nears.

“This is the day that people ought to be buying food, water and batteries,” Delaware Governor Jack Markell said yesterday on Bloomberg Television’s “InBusiness With Margaret Brennan.”

Markell declared a state of emergency, as did Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue and Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell. The declarations free up state resources to be spent on storm-related expenses....

This panoramic view of recently-formed Hurricane Irene was acquired by the crew of the International Space Station early Monday afternoon from a point over the coastal waters of Venezuela. At the time Irene was packing winds of 80mph and was just north of the Mona Passage between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Although no eye was visible at this time, the storm was strengthening and exhibited the size and structure of a classic "Cape Verde" hurricane as it tracked west-northwestward towards the southern Bahamas.

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