Harrisburg faces critical vote on fiscal recovery plan

Mayor Linda Thompson speaks to council during a presentation of
the 2011 city budget at the City Government Center in Harrisburg.

A state takeover of Harrisburg seems more likely each day.

On Friday, Mayor Linda Thompson met with Gov. Tom Corbett, who assured her that should the City Council reject the fiscal recovery plan she created for the city, state takeover legislation for Harrisburg would proceed.

Further, the wheels seem to be coming off a crucial piece of Thompson’s plan that would infuse the city with the short-term cash it needs to make a general obligation bond payment and cover payroll next month.

The council will vote on Thompson’s plan on Wednesday.

She needs to sway one of the four members who voted down the state-sponsored Act 47 plan to back her proposal.

The four members who voted against the Act 47 plan have indicated they don’t support the mayor’s plan.

“I have done all I can to bring the stakeholders together,” Thompson said. “I’m appealing to [the] council at this point.”

Thompson said Corbett told her that he supports her plan that addresses Harrisburg’s $310 million of incinerator debt and its budget deficit.

If the council rejects it, however, takeover legislation created by state Sen. Jeffrey Piccola, R-Dauphin County, would proceed.

Piccola’s bill, Senate Bill 1151, is in committee in the House.

It would create a three-member panel to oversee implementation of the state-sponsored Act 47 plan the council rejected on July 19.

The Legislature is expected to approve it when it reconvenes next month.

If it hits Corbett’s desk, he told Thompson that he would sign it.

Corbett spokesman Kevin Harley said the approximately 40-minute meeting between Corbett and Thompson went well.

“[Thompson] certainly made her pitch. She only has today three votes and needs four. She talked about what she’s done, what she wants to do,” Harley said. “It was a good meeting. The governor listened.”

The four council members who voted down the Act 47 plan, Brad Koplinski, Wanda Williams, Susan Brown-Wilson and Eugenia Smith, did not return calls for this story to discuss the mayor’s plan.

Thompson’s proposal counts on $7.5 million from a lease agreement with the Harrisburg Parking Authority to pay a $3.3 million general bond obligation due Sept. 14 and make payroll next month.

There are three payrolls amounting to more than $3 million due in September, and Harrisburg has about $1 million in cash. To get the $7.5 million up-front payment, the city would extend the lease of land under three garages to the authority for 10 years.

The authority has yet to land a loan to enter the lease agreement, however, and it is causing turbulence among investors.

News of Harrisburg’s probably missed bond payment shook the financial markets Thursday and caused the Dow to drop by more than 213 points, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Authority Executive Director Richard Kotz did not return repeated interview requests over several days to find out where the loan efforts stand.

Thompson said the authority is looking into multiple loan arrangements but would not elaborate.

And even though the bond payment is due in a little more than two weeks, she said the authority has enough time to make the arrangement work.

Thompson asked Corbett to front-load $2.6 million in state pension funding and $487,000 in fire protection money the commonwealth is due to pay the city this fiscal year.

The money also would help ensure Harrisburg makes its bond payment and cover payroll.

Corbett told Thompson he would consider the request.

Last year, former Gov. Ed Rendell approved a similar request from Thompson when he gave Harrisburg $4.3 million so it could cover the same bond note and pay an adviser the mayor wanted to hire to help Harrisburg develop a debt recovery plan.

The council rejected the hiring of Scott Balice Strategies, which Thompson wanted to hire for $850,000.

Corbett also recently responded in writing to a letter Thompson sent him Aug. 18.

As reported previously, the state has told the city it is willing to give Harrisburg $8 million of state funding to help fix a broken steam line used to sell steam generated at the incinerator, which Corbett promised in the letter pending the City Council’s approval of Thompson’s plan.

The state also will make good on a $5.7 million Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority loan to help upgrade the city’s sewer facilities, should the city adopt her plan, Corbett said.

The governor also said in the letter that the state would increase the fire protection funding it gives to Harrisburg annually from roughly $500,000 to $2.5 million if the council approves a plan.

If the council approves the plan, Corbett also promised an additional $900,000 to help pay for counsel and adviser services the city would need to help renegotiate union contracts and implement the plan, Thompson said.

But if the council rejects the plan, the city most likely will lose the power to make financial decisions, Corbett said in a letter dated Aug. 23.

“If there is no approved plan at this point, then the city is likely to become mired in litigation and financial chaos,” Corbett said. “If the latter occurs, the commonwealth will not bail out the city. Indeed, if the city continues down the path of irresponsible economic decision-making, it is probable that legislative action will result in the city losing control of its ability to make such decisions.”

Swollen rivers begin falling across Northeast

Swollen rivers begin falling across Northeast

A United States flag hangs near a washed out section of US 4 in Killington, Vt, in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene, Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2011. Running low on food and money, Vermont residents stranded by flooded roads relied upon provisions dropped by National Guard troops to get by Wednesday while the rest of the East Coast labored to recover from the wrath of the hurricane-turned-tropical storm known as Irene.

KILLINGTON, Vt. (AP) -- Swollen rivers began falling Wednesday in much of the Northeast, easing the flooding that paralyzed parts of the region after Hurricane Irene and allowing emergency crews to reach all but one of the Vermont towns that had been cut off by floodwaters.

Receding water revealed more damage to homes, farms and businesses across the flood-scarred landscape. Repair estimates indicated that the storm would almost certainly rank among the nation's costliest natural disasters, despite packing a lighter punch than initially feared.

Of the 11 towns that had been cut off from the outside world, all except tiny Wardsboro had been reached by rescuers, and authorities were hoping to reach it shortly. National Guard helicopters continued to ferry supplies to mountain communities that had no electricity, no telephone service and limited transportation in or out.

Eight helicopters from the Illinois National Guard were expected to arrive Wednesday with food, blankets, tarps and drinking water.

At Killington Elementary School, residents came for a free hot dog and corn-on-the-cob. Jason and Angela Heaslip picked up a bag filled with peanut butter, cereal and toilet paper for their three children and three others who are visiting from Long Island.

"Right now, they're getting little portions because we're trying to make the food last," said Jason Heaslip, who only has a dollar in his bank account because the storm has kept him from getting paid by the resort where he works.

Don Fielder, a house painter in Gaysville, said the White River roared through his house, tearing the first floor off the foundation and filling a bathroom tub with mud. He was upbeat as he showed a visitor the damage, but said he's reluctant to go into town for fear he will cry when people ask about the home he built himself 16 years ago.

Other losses include a 1957 Baldwin piano and a collection of 300 Beanie Babies amassed by his daughter, who does not live with him but has a bedroom at his house.

"I bet that's in the river," he said.

If Irene's death toll stands, it would be comparable to 1999's Hurricane Floyd, which also struck North Carolina and charged up the East Coast into New England, causing most of its 57 deaths by inland drowning. At the time, it was the deadliest U.S. hurricane in nearly 40 years but was later dwarfed by the 1,800 deaths caused by Katrina in 2005.

An estimate released immediately after Irene by the Kinetic Analysis Corp., a consulting firm that uses computer models to estimate storm losses, put the damage at $7.2 billion in eight states and Washington, D.C.

That would eclipse damage from Hurricane Bob, which caused $1 billion in damage in New England in 1991 or the equivalent of about $1.7 billion today, and Hurricane Gloria, which swept through the region in 1985 and left $900 million, or the equivalent of $1.9 billion today, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

Even as rivers finally stopped rising in Vermont, New Jersey, and Connecticut, many communities and farm areas remained flooded, and officials said complete damage estimates were nowhere in sight.

Some New Jersey towns resembled large, soggy yard sales as residents dragged flood-damaged belongings out onto lawns and into streets still muddied with floodwaters.

Large sections of Wallington, N.J. remained underwater after a cruel one-two punch: The Passaic River flooded the heart-shaped hamlet Sunday and then receded, only to rise again late Tuesday, forcing a new round of evacuations.

"Sunday morning, the water was only up to here," said Kevin O'Reilly, gesturing to where his front lawn used to meet the sidewalk. "My daughter and I took a walk around the block. We figured everything would be fine."

Only hours later, waves were bouncing off the house, and the basement windows were shattered.

"It sounded like Niagara Falls," O'Reilly said. "It just filled up immediately, and this is what we've been dealing with since then."

The town is accustomed to moderate flooding because sits atop a network of underground streams that form a water table already saturated by record August rainfall.

Neighbors had started mucking out flooded basements and piling water-logged furniture and ruined possessions on the sidewalks when the river rose again. The town rushed to place garbage bins on higher ground so debris wouldn't be floating in the high water.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo estimated the damage to his state alone at $1 billion during a visit to Prattsville, a Catskills community where 600 homes were damaged by heavy rains and floods that also shredded roads and washed out bridges.

"Upstate New York paid a terrible, terrible price for this storm," Cuomo said.

Downstream from Vermont's devastating floods, the Connecticut River hit levels not seen in 24 years, but Middletown Mayor Sebastian Giuliano said the situation was not much worse than annual spring floods caused by snowmelt.

In Simsbury, Conn., several farm fields were flooded along the Farmington River. Pumpkins and other produce could be seen floating away.

"Farmers lost a good amount of crops," said First Selectwoman Mary Glassman.

After floods in 1955, New England states installed flood-control dams and basins that helped prevent a catastrophe along the lower Connecticut River, said Denise Ruzicka, director of inland water resources for Connecticut's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

Power outages persisted across the region, with some of the largest in Connecticut, where more than 360,000 homes and businesses were still in the dark, and Virginia, where 242,000 customers had no lights.

In the ski resort town of Killington, Vt., residents were volunteering to use their lawn tractors to help remove mud and debris. People with electricity were letting neighbors without water use their showers. One question was whether the camaraderie would wear thin before things returned to normal.

Karen Dalury, who did not have power at her home, said she had been eating vegetables from her garden and storing some in a neighbor's freezer.

"For now it's fun," she said, "but who knows how long it's going to continue."

In North Carolina, where Irene blew ashore along the Outer Banks on Saturday before heading for New York and New England, Gov. Beverly Perdue said the hurricane destroyed more than 1,100 homes and caused at least $70 million in damage.

With Irene gone, scientists turned their attention to the open Atlantic Ocean, where Tropical Storm Katia was gaining strength and forecast to become a hurricane by early next week. Meteorologists said it was too soon to determine where it might go.

Government sues to block AT&T, T-Mobile merger

Government sues to block AT&T, T-Mobile merger

FILE - This file combination photo displays logos for AT&T, left, and Deutsche Telekom AG. The Justice Department filed suit Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2011, to block AT&T's $39 billion deal to buy T-Mobile USA on grounds that it would raise prices for consumers.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Justice Department filed suit Wednesday to block AT&T's $39 billion deal to buy T-Mobile USA on grounds that it would raise prices for consumers.

The government contends that the acquisition of the No. 4 wireless carrier in the country by No. 2 AT&T would reduce competition and that would lead to price increases.

At a news conference, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the combination would result in "tens of millions of consumers all across the United States facing higher prices, fewer choices and lower quality products for mobile wireless services."

The lawsuit seeks to ensure that everyone can continue to receive the benefits of competition, said Cole.

AT&T said it would fight and ask for an expedited court hearing "so the enormous benefits of this merger can be fully reviewed." The company said the government "has the burden of proving alleged anti-competitive effects, and we intend to vigorously contest this matter in court."

Four nationwide providers - Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint - account for more than 90 percent of mobile wireless connections.

T-Mobile has been an important source of competition, including through innovation and quality enhancements such as the roll-out of the first nationwide high-speed data network, according to Sharis Pozen, acting chief of Justice's antitrust division.

Mobile wireless telecom services play an increasing role in day-to-day communications, with more than 300 million smart phones, data cards, tablets and other mobile wireless devices in use.

Deutsche Telekom, the owner of T-Mobile, had no immediate comment.

The proposed cash-and-stock transaction would catapult AT&T past Verizon Wireless to become the nation's largest wireless provider, and leave Sprint Nextel Corp. as a distant number three.

In a statement, Sprint said the Justice Department's lawsuit "delivered a decisive victory for consumers, competition and our country. By filing suit to block AT&T's proposed takeover of T-Mobile, the DOJ has put consumers' interests first."

AT&T and T-Mobile compete nationwide, in 97 of the largest 100 cellular marketing areas, according to the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. They also vie for business and government customers.

The suit says AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile would eliminate a company that has been a competitive factor through low pricing and innovation. T-Mobile had the first handset using the Android operating system, Blackberry wireless email, the Sidekick smart phone, national Wi-Fi "hotspot" access and a variety of unlimited service plans.

In support of its case, the department quoted an unidentified AT&T employee on a competitive issue, the sophisticated wireless broadband devices that can provide high-speed data connections. The AT&T employee, according to the suit, noted that T-Mobile was first to have such devices in its portfolio and that "we added them in reaction to potential loss of speed claims."

Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski said the record before his agency "raises serious concerns about the impact of the proposed transaction on competition." The FCC's separate review of the proposed merger is not complete.

Commission member Michael Copps, a Democrat and a staunch opponent of industry consolidation, said that he shares "the concerns about competition and have numerous other concerns about the public interest effects of the proposed transaction, including consumer choice and innovation."

Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, who heads the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights, said the suit was an effort to protect consumers "in a powerful and growing industry that reaches virtually every American."

The suit used some of T-Mobile's own documents describing its role in the market to explain why the merger shouldn't take place. In those documents, the company calls itself "the No. 1 challenger of the established big guys in the market and as well positioned in a consolidated 4-player national market."

T-Mobile said its strategy is to attack other companies and find innovative ways to overcome the fact that it is a smaller company.

T-Mobile "will be faster, more agile and scrappy, with diligence on decisions and costs both big and small," one company document said. "Our approach to market will not be conventional, and we will push to the boundaries where possible."

Since AT&T first announced the deal in March, it has insisted that consumers would have a choice of multiple wireless providers, including Leap, Metro PCS and U.S. Cellular, in many markets even if the deal is approved.

But the department rejected that argument. It said regional providers face "significant competitive limitations" because they do not have national networks. The department said the enormous investments and resources needed to acquire wireless spectrum and build a network make it very difficult for new companies to enter the wireless market.

AT&T and T-Mobile also have said the merger would reduce dropped and blocked calls, and speed mobile Internet connections for subscribers. Faster service would result by combining their limited wireless spectrum holdings at a time when both companies are running out of airwaves to handle mobile apps, online video and other bandwidth-hungry services.

Finding more airwaves to keep up with the explosive growth of wireless broadband services is a priority of the FCC and the Obama administration.

But the Justice Department said AT&T could "obtain substantially the same network enhancements ... if it simply invested in its own network without eliminating a close competitor."

Justice replaces 3 officials over Fast and Furious

Justice replaces 3 officials over Fast and Furious

FILE - In this April 8, 2010 file photo, B. Todd Jones, U.S. Attorney for Minnesota speaks in St. Paul, Minn. Jones Jones, will replace Kenneth Melson as the ATF's acting director after Melson resigned following investigations into a flawed law enforcement operation aimed at major gun-trafficking networks on the Southwest border.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Justice Department replaced three officials Tuesday who played critical roles in a flawed law enforcement operation aimed at major gun-trafficking networks on the Southwest border.

The department announced that the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. attorney in Arizona had resigned and an administration official said a prosecutor who worked on the operation was reassigned to civil cases.

The operation, known as Fast and Furious, was designed to track small-time gun buyers at several Phoenix-area gun shops up the chain to make cases against major weapons traffickers. It was a response to longstanding criticism of ATF for concentrating on small-time gun violations and failing to attack the kingpins of weapons trafficking.

A congressional investigation of the program has turned up evidence that ATF lost track of many of the more than 2,000 guns linked to the operation. The Justice Department inspector general also is looking into the operation at the request of Attorney General Eric Holder.

The operation has resulted in charges against 20 people and more may be charged.

Kenneth Melson will be replaced as ATF's acting chief by B. Todd Jones, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota.

With Republicans in Congress and the department bickering over the investigation, Melson finally testified recently to Hill investigators in private. He said his department superiors "were doing more damage control than anything" and trying to keep the controversy away from top officials.

Also leaving was Dennis Burke, U.S. attorney in Arizona, whose office was deeply involved in Operation Fast and Furious. Burke will be replaced on an acting basis by his first assistant, Ann Scheel.

In a related change, the line prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix who worked on the Fast and Furious investigation, Emory Hurley, was reassigned from criminal cases to civil case work, according to an administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity about the personnel matter.

The moves are the latest and most significant effort by the Justice Department to address the controversy. In earlier personnel changes, three ATF agents were laterally transferred starting in May from operational positions to administrative roles.

Jones will continue to serve as U.S. attorney when he assumes the top ATF spot on Wednesday. In a statement, Holder called Jones "a demonstrated leader who brings a wealth of experience to this position."

In an interview, Jones said that ATF personnel "have been hugely distracted in some parts of the country with other things" and that he plans to listen to people within the agency, then "we'll get everybody refocused, to the extent they are not focused."

Melson will become senior adviser on forensic science in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, a development that brought an objection from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. Instead of reassigning those responsible for Operation Fast and Furious, Holder should oust them, said Cornyn.

ATF intelligence analyst Lorren Leadmon testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform committee last month that of more than 2,000 weapons linked to Fast and Furious, some 1,400 have not been recovered.

Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California, chair of the House panel, said in a statement that "the reckless disregard for safety that took place in Operation Fast and Furious certainly merits changes."

Issa said his committee will pursue its investigation to ensure that "blame isn't offloaded on just a few individuals for a matter that involved much higher levels of the Justice Department."

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, whose investigation brought problems with Operation Fast and Furious to light, called for a full accounting from the Justice Department as to "who knew what and when, so we can be sure that this ill-advised strategy never happens again."

The strategy behind Fast and Furious carried the risk that its tracking dimension would be inadequate and some guns would wind up in the hands of criminals in Mexico or the U.S. and be used at crime scenes - which did happen to some of the guns.

In testimony to congressional investigators, Melson said that in at least one instance ATF agents did not intercept high-powered weapons when they could and should have. In congressional testimony in July, William McMahon, the head of ATF's Western region, apologized for failing to keep close enough track of the investigation in Arizona. Another ATF official, William Newell, formerly in charge of the Phoenix field office, acknowledged mistakes had been made in the agency's handling of the operation. Newell called for more frequent assessments of risky strategies like that used in Fast and Furious.

But congressional hearings also brought complaints from ATF agents about the difficulty of arresting straw purchasers at the time of sale. More than half a dozen law enforcement officials who testified in the congressional probe warned that penalties for illegal straw purchases are completely inadequate - with the result that U.S. Attorneys' offices often decline to prosecute illegal straw purchasing cases.

One witness, ATF agent Peter Forcelli, a senior group supervisor in Phoenix, testified that if the option in straw purchaser cases was "doing some jail time, you might get some cooperation, so the guy would come in" and offer information and agents "would be able to develop intelligence to build a case."

Jones is a former military judge advocate as well as a prosecutor. Holder said, "I have great confidence that he will be a strong and steady influence guiding ATF in fulfilling its mission of combating violent crime by enforcing federal criminal laws."

The attorney general said Melson brings decades of experience at the department and extensive knowledge in forensic science to his new role. Holder also praised Burke for demonstrating "an unwavering commitment" to the Justice Department and the U.S. attorney's office, starting over a decade ago when he was a line prosecutor. Burke served as chief of staff to former Gov. Janet Napolitano, now U.S. Homeland Security Secretary and he was a top aide to Napolitano when she was Arizona attorney general.

Helicopters rush food, water to cut-off Vt. towns

Helicopters rush food, water to cut-off Vt. towns

Residents stand in line outside a grocery store on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2011 in Rochester, Vt. The town has been completely cut off since Tropical Storm Irene hit.

NEWFANE, Vt. (AP) -- National Guard helicopters rushed food and water Tuesday to a dozen cut-off Vermont towns after the rainy remnants of Hurricane Irene washed out roads and bridges in a deluge that took many people in the landlocked New England state by surprise.

"As soon as we can get help, we need help," Liam McKinley said by cellphone from a mountain above flood-stricken Rochester, Vt.

Up to 11 inches of rain from the weekend storm turned placid streams into churning, brown torrents that knocked homes off their foundations, flattened trees and took giant bites out of the asphalt across the countryside. At least three people died in Vermont.

"I think that people are still a little shell-shocked right now. There's just a lot of disbelief on people's faces. It came through so quickly, and there's so much damage," Gail Devine, director of the Woodstock Recreation Center, said as volunteers moved furniture out of the flooded basement and shoveled out thick mud that filled the center's two swimming pools.

As crews raced to repair the roads, the National Guard began flying in supplies to the towns of Cavendish, Granville, Hancock, Killington-Mendon, Marlboro, Pittsfield, Plymouth, Rochester, Stockbridge, Strafford, Stratton and Wardsboro. The Guard also used heavy-duty vehicles to bring relief to flood-stricken communities still reachable by road.

The cut-off towns ranged in population from under 200 (Stratton) to nearly 1,400 (Cavendish).

"If it's a life-and-death situation, where someone needs to be Medevac-ed or taken to a hospital, we would get a helicopter there to airlift them out, if we could get close to them. A lot of these areas are mountainous areas where there may not be a place to land," said Mark Bosma, a spokesman for Vermont Emergency Management.

There were no immediate reports of anyone in dire condition being rescued by helicopter.

But it took a relay operation involving two ambulances and an all-terrain vehicle to take a Killington woman in respiratory distress to a hospital in Rutland, about 13 miles away, after floodwaters severed the road between the two communities, Rutland Regional Medical Center President Tom Hubner said. The patient, whose name was not released, was doing fine, he said.

In Rochester, where telephones were out and damage was severe, people could be seen from helicopters standing in line outside a grocery store. McKinley said the town's restaurants and a supermarket were giving food away rather than let it spoil, and townspeople were helping each other.

"We've been fine so far. The worst part is not being able to communicate with the rest of the state and know when people are coming in," he said.

He said government agencies did a good job of warning people about the storm. "But here in Vermont, I think we just didn't expect it and didn't prepare for it," he said. "I thought, how could it happen here?"

Wendy Pratt, another of the few townspeople able to communicate with the outside world, posted an update on Facebook using a generator and a satellite Internet connection. She sketched a picture of both devastation and New England neighborliness.

"People have lost their homes, their belongings, businesses ... the cemetery was flooded and caskets were lost down the river. So many areas of complete devastation," Pratt wrote. "In town there is no cell service or internet service - all phones in town are out. We had a big town meeting at the church at 4 this afternoon to get any updates."

"Mac's opened up at 5 and gave perishables away to anyone who came," she added. "The Huntington House put on a big, free community dinner tonight."

Access to Rochester and Stratton by road was restored later in the day, officials said.

All together, the storm has been blamed for at least 44 deaths in 13 states. More than 2.5 million people from North Carolina to Maine were still without electricity Tuesday, three days after the hurricane churned up the Eastern Seaboard.

While all eyes were on the coast as Irene swirled northward, some of the worst destruction took place well inland, away from the storm's most punishing winds. In Vermont, Gov. Peter Shumlin called it the worst flooding in a century. Small towns in upstate New York - especially in the Catskills and the Adirondacks - were also besieged by floodwaters.

In Pittsfield, Vt., newlyweds Marc Leibowitz and Janina Stegmeyer of New York City were stranded Sunday along with members of the wedding party and dozens of their guests after floodwaters swamped the couple's honeymoon cottage. The honeymooners narrowly escaped in a four-wheel-drive rental car just before a bridge behind them collapsed.

More than a dozen of the 60 or so guests were airlifted out by private helicopters on Tuesday.

Michael Ricci of Woodstock, Vt., spent the day clearing debris from his backyard along the Ottauquechee River. What had been a meticulously mowed, sloping grass lawn and gorgeous flower beds was now a muddy expanse littered with debris, including wooden boards, propane tanks and a deer hunting target.

"The things we saw go down the river were just incredible," he said. "Sheds, picnic tables, propane tanks, furnaces, refrigerators. We weren't prepared for that. We had prepared for wind and what we ended up with was more water than I could possibly, possibly have imagined." He said the water in the yard was almost up to the house, or about 15 to 20 feet above normal.

He added: "The force of it was beyond our comprehension."

Vermont emergency officials and the National Weather Service warned before the storm about the potential for heavy rain and flooding. On Thursday, Shumlin recommended stocking up on enough food, water and other supplies to last three days.

On Tuesday, the governor defended his state's decision not to undertake extensive evacuations before the storm arrived, noting that it was too hard to predict which communities in a rugged place like Vermont would get hit.

"You'd have to evacuate the entire state," he said.

Gerald and Evangeline Monroe of Quechee, Vt., agreed with the governor and said they had no complaints about the way authorities handled the crisis.

Gerald Monroe noted that some homes on one side of the river through his town were damaged, while those on the opposite banks 100 yards away were unscathed.

His wife said city-dwellers may see a weather report and know it applies to their entire metropolitan area. "But when you live in Vermont, there are lots of little microclimates and every village is different." she said. "I think our authorities were fine."

Approximately 260 roads in Vermont were closed because of storm damage, along with about 30 highway bridges. Vermont Deputy Transportation Secretary Sue Minter said the infrastructure damage was in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Relief supplies arrived at Vermont's National Guard headquarters early Tuesday in a convoy of 30 trucks from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Accompanied by Shumlin, FEMA administrator Craig Fugate toured the state by helicopter Tuesday to survey the damage.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, where Irene blew ashore along the Outer Banks on Saturday before heading for New York and New England, Gov. Beverly Perdue said the hurricane destroyed more than 1,100 homes and caused at least $70 million in damage.

Airlines said it would be days before the thousands of passengers stranded by Irene find their way home. Amtrak service was still out Tuesday between Philadelphia and New York because of flooding in Trenton. Commuter train service between New Jersey and New York City resumed Tuesday, except for one line that was still dealing with flooding.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said at news conference in North Carolina that she was unaware of anything federal authorities should have done differently in Vermont. She said FEMA and its state counterpart worked closely together, and she noted that after the state agency operations center got flooded out, it moved into FEMA's quarters.

William "Breck" Bowden, an expert on Vermont's watershed at the University of Vermont, attributed the disaster to a combination of factors: The soil was wet, Vermont's steep hills quickly fed the rainfall into streams, and the storm dumped a huge amount of water.

"There was plenty of warning being given about the coming storm by the meteorological community and the news media," he said. "The real issues are the enormous damage to our infrastructure. That's nothing an evacuation could have done anything about."

Experts praise decisions to evacuate from Irene

Experts praise decisions to evacuate from Irene

FILE - In this Aug. 26, 2011 file photo, residents and vacationers head north on Long Beach Blvd as they heed the mandatory evacuation imposed by local officials as the area prepares for the arrival of Hurricane Irene makes it's way up the east coast in Beach Haven, N.J. Disaster experts unanimously said evacuating was the right choice and it saved lives. But these were tough nail-biting calls that are now being second-guessed.

NEW YORK (AP) -- They were life and death decisions made by politicians, bureaucrats and everyday people. Hurricane Irene was barreling toward the East Coast. It was big. It was scary. Flooding was certain. The choice: Flee or stay put.

Disaster experts unanimously said evacuating was the right choice and it saved lives. But these were tough nail-biting calls that are now being second-guessed.

In New York City, it was debated during a critical staff meeting in City Hall where the deadly specter of Katrina and New Orleans was raised. On Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, saying he worried about deadly flooding in low-lying areas, made the first ever call for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to leave their homes.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was trademark blunt in his order: "Get the hell off the beach."

Since Irene didn't hit with the advertised fury, those decisions and others up and down the Eastern Seaboard are being reexamined. Experts in hurricanes and disaster preparations and risk analysis, though, only had praise Monday, pointing out it takes a long time to evacuate densely populated areas and the hurricane's forecasts left little room for error.

"Second-guessing is easy, making those evacuation calls is not," said George Washington University risk sciences professor George Gray, a former senior Environmental Protection Agency official in the George W. Bush administration. "Given available information, I think risk analysts would say the right choices were made."

Traditionally, larger areas and more people have to be evacuated than turns out to be necessary, said Florida State University professor Jay Baker, who has studied hurricane evacuation.

"That's just an artifact of the uncertainty," said Baker.

Meteorologists have gotten pretty good at figuring out a storm's path, but predicting its strength is a struggle. They nailed Irene's track but it weakened more than forecast as it moved north.

Irene "was a very dangerous storm," said Kathleen Tierney, director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado, saying this storm was handled far better than 2005's Katrina. "I don't think there's any doubt that lives were saved."

Jack and Sue Holloway are probably two of those lives. The Delaware residents dithered about staying at their beach home in coastal Lewes. They decided to stay, and then changed their minds when Delaware Gov. Jack Markell urged an evacuation at a news conference.

Saturday night, strong winds from what officials believe was a tornado spun off by Irene damaged several homes in Lewes, ripping off the top of the Holloways' home, blasting apart the garage.

Along the Connecticut shore, East Haven firefighters went door-to-door to tell residents to leave. Some residents wouldn't go and needed to be rescued, fire Chief Doug Jackson said. Twenty-five beachfront homes were destroyed.

"They jeopardize themselves when they stay there. They also jeopardize my people," Jackson said. "Now I have to make rescues that should not have been necessary."

East Haven's Bill Cowles, 55, never considered leaving his home. The water rose to just below the electrical sockets on the first floor and he could see neighbors' houses crashing around him.

"When the water started coming in the front door, I knew we were in trouble," he said. Still, Cowles said he was glad he stayed because he had to chase away people who were watching the storm and taking pictures from his yard.

New Jersey's governor was certain he did the right thing.

"I want to make one thing really clear for the folks who will now say, `Well, there wasn't abject destruction up and down the coastline, therefore we shouldn't have left,'" Christie said Sunday. "Let me tell you those types of second-guessers won't be tolerated. We saved lives."

Officials "are always going to err on the side of caution," said Susan Cutter, director of the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina. Emergency officials, in general, plan for a hurricane at least one category higher than what's forecast, said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman at the National Hurricane Center.

New York's Bloomberg later explained that timing was key in his decision. He was faced with getting 370,000 people out of low-lying areas before the subway was shut down by the governor. He said, "People need time to leave, to make decisions, to plan with their family. You can't just say `go' and have everybody go."

His deputy mayor for operations, Cas Holloway, said two factors were forcing officials' hands: more than half of the city's residents don't have cars and the evacuation zone included 7,000 people in hospitals, nursing homes and senior citizen centers.

"We had limited time frames to move the populations we had to move," he said Monday.

While the orders came from authorities, the decision was ultimately up to individuals. Unlike Southerners, those in the Northeast aren't used to the summertime drill of hurricanes and evacuation zones.

Decades of study show that it is not unusual to get only half to two-thirds of the people to actually evacuate, Florida State's Baker said. And because of that "we've been lucky in this country not to have huge losses of life like we saw in Katrina" he said.

Some people fear that storms that seem to peter out - like Irene - will only make that worse. But Baker said that's not the case. In past storms - such as in 1985, when western Florida evacuated three times and didn't get hit - the "cry wolf" syndrome did not materialize, Baker said. The same number of people evacuated for each of those storms.

And post-storm surveys show only around 5 percent of people would change their decision.

Every year, emergency managers and elected officials come to the National Hurricane Center in Miami and learn about the complexities of hurricane forecasts. They practice scenarios much like Irene's, said retired center director Max Mayfield.

Mayfield said the many evacuation orders showed that they understood what they were taught.

"They knew they had to get people out early," Mayfield said.

Cutter said the death count from Irene, so far around three dozen, is extraordinarily low considering where it hit, the rainfall, tornadoes and the large size of the storm.

For Bloomberg, that's the real key. He said Sunday, "the bottom line is, I would make the same decisions again without hesitation."

Irene's toll jumps to 38; Vt. towns battle floods

Irene's toll jumps to 38; Vt. towns battle floods

A damaged historic covered bridge spans Cox Brook in Northfield, Vt., Monday, Aug. 29, 2011, the day after Tropical Storm Irene dumped heavy rainfall across the region, causing flash floods.

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- The full measure of Hurricane Irene's fury came into focus Monday as the death toll jumped to 38, New England towns battled epic floods and millions faced the dispiriting prospect of several days without electricity.

From North Carolina to Maine, communities cleaned up and took stock of the uneven and hard-to-predict costs of a storm that spared the nation's biggest city a nightmare scenario, only to deliver a historic wallop to towns well inland.

In New York City, where people had braced for a disaster-movie scene of water swirling around skyscrapers, the subways and buses were up and running again in time for the Monday morning commute. And to the surprise of many New Yorkers, things went pretty smoothly.

But in New England, landlocked Vermont contended with what its governor called the worst flooding in a century. Streams also raged out of control in upstate New York.

In many cases, the moment of maximum danger arrived well after the storm had passed, as rainwater made its way into rivers and streams and turned them into torrents. Irene dumped up to 11 inches of rain on Vermont and more than 13 in parts of New York.

"We were expecting heavy rains," said Bobbi-Jean Jeun of Clarksville, a hamlet near Albany, N.Y. "We were expecting flooding. We weren't expecting devastation. It looks like somebody set a bomb off."

Meanwhile, the 11-state death toll, which had stood at 21 as of Sunday night, rose sharply as bodies were pulled from floodwaters and people were electrocuted by downed power lines.

The tally of Irene's destruction mounted, too. An apparently vacant home exploded in an evacuated, flooded area in Pompton Lakes, N.J., early Monday, and firefighters had to battle the flames from a boat. In the Albany, N.Y., suburb of Guilderland, police rescued two people Monday after their car was swept away. Rescuers found them three hours later, clinging to trees along the swollen creek.

"It's going to take time to recover from a storm of this magnitude," President Barack Obama warned as he promised the government would do everything in its power to help people get back on their feet.

For many people, the aftermath could prove more painful than the storm itself.

In North Carolina, where Irene blew ashore along the Outer Banks on Saturday before heading for New York and New England, 1,000 people were still in emergency shelters, awaiting word on their homes.

At the same time, nearly 5 million homes and businesses in a dozen states were still without electricity, and utilities warned it might be a week or more before some people got their power back.

"Once the refrigerator gets warm, my insulin goes bad. I could go into diabetic shock. It's kind of scary because we don't know how long it's going to be out for," said Patricia Dillon, a partially paralyzed resident of a home for the disabled in Milford, Conn., where the electricity was out and a generator failed. Her voice cracking, she added: "I'm very tired, stressed out, aggravated, scared."

Russ Furlong of Barrington, R.I., ruefully remembered the two weeks he went without power after Hurricane Bob 20 years ago.

"Hopefully, we won't have to wait that long this time," he said. "Last night we had candles. It was romantic. It was fun. But that feeling doesn't last too long."

Up and down the Eastern Seaboard, commuters and vacationers found their travel plans scrambled. Airlines warned it would be days before the thousands of passengers stranded by Irene find their way home. Some Amtrak service in the Northeast was suspended. Commuter trains between New Jersey and New York City were not running. Trains between the city and its northern suburbs were also disrupted.

Kris and Jennifer Sylvester of Brooklyn sat on a bench in the town center in Woodstock, N.Y., with luggage at their feet and their daughters, aged 4 and 9, holding signs reading, "Need a Ride 2 NYC" and "Help Us, No Bus, No Train." They rode Amtrak out for a long weekend in the country, but were unable to get home.

"We're hoping for anything," Jennifer Sylvester said.

In Vermont, the state's emergency management headquarters stood empty, evacuated because of river flooding from Irene's heavy rains. Rescuers used a boat and bucket loaders to pluck seven people from a swamped mobile home park in Lyndonville.

In upstate New York, authorities were closely watching major dams holding back drinking water reservoirs.

Throughout the region, hundreds of roads were impassable because of flooding or fallen trees, and some bridges had simply given way, including a 156-year-old hand-hewn, wooden, covered bridge across Schoharie Creek in Blenheim, N.Y. In all, more than a dozen towns in Vermont and at least three in New York remained cut off by flooded roads and bridges.

Still, there were glimmers of good news. In Pennsylvania, the Delaware River largely remained in its banks, cresting several feet lower than feared. The forecast for flooding on the Mohawk River in New York also eased at Schenectady, N.Y., where officials had worried that high water might threaten the city's drinking water and sewage treatment plant.

Early estimates put Irene's damage at $7 billion to $10 billion, much smaller than the impact of monster storms such as Hurricane Katrina, which did more than $100 billion in damage. Irene's effects are small compared to the overall U.S. economy, which produces about $14 trillion of goods and services every year.

While hard-hit regions, such as the North Carolina coast, will suffer from lost tourism, rebuilding homes, repairing cars, and fixing streets and bridges should provide a small boost to economy, experts said.

Irene was also good for business at Fantastic Kids Toys in New York City, where sales of board games and arts-and-crafts items surged on Friday and Saturday. "People were buying anything to keep their kids busy," owner Steve Reis said.

Many people were surprised by the destruction that Hurricane Irene wrought in communities far inland. But National Weather Service records show that 59 percent of the deaths attributed to hurricanes since the 1970s have been from freshwater flooding.

As for why the flooding was so bad this time, Shaun Tanner, a meteorologist with the forecasting service Weather Underground, noted that August had been unusually wet, and Irene's sheer size meant huge amounts of rain were dumped over a very large area.

"More attention should have been paid to the torrential rain that Irene was going to dump not only on coastal areas, but also inland. That was clear several days ahead of time," Tanner said.

Va. soldier sought in 4 deaths found dead in Pa.

Va. soldier sought in 4 deaths found dead in Pa.

In this undated photo provided by the Warwick Township Police Department, Leonard John Egland is seen. Egland, a soldier who recently returned from war service, fired at officers in suburban Philadelphia as he was sought in the Virginia deaths of his ex-wife, her boyfriend and the boyfriend's young son, authorities said. The soldier's former mother-in-law was also killed, and he remains at large. Residents of Warwick Township were asked to stay in their homes and lock doors and cars as police hunted for Egland, 37, of Fort Lee, Va., who evaded authorities as Hurricane Irene lashed the area.

JAMISON, Pa. (AP) -- An Army officer suspected of killing four people in Pennsylvania and Virginia was found dead in a wooded area Sunday after a manhunt during Tropical Storm Irene's winds and drenching rains paralyzed residents in the Philadelphia suburb.

Hours after he fired at several officers, wounding two of them, the body of Capt. Leonard John Egland, 37, of Fort Lee, Va., was found around 3:30 p.m. in the Bucks County community of Warwick Township, Police Chief Mark Goldberg said.

Egland's body was found several hundred yards behind a Lukoil gas station where authorities say he had fired a semiautomatic rifle at SWAT team members who discovered his truck and found him before dawn in a trash bin. The officers, who were not injured, chased him into the woods but lost him as the storm raked the area, Goldberg said.

"It was bad," he said. "Weather conditions were horrible and it was a very dangerous situation."

He said the SWAT teams had "performed courageously."

With Egland on the run, armed with two weapons, residents were warned to stay indoors and keep their doors locked, the police chief said.

The manhunt, Goldberg said, "tied up departments all over Bucks County ... It didn't prevent us from responding during the storm but it certainly taxed our resources."

Three Bucks County SWAT teams, state police and numerous police departments searched for Egland after his former mother-in-law was found shot to death in her home in Buckingham.

Authorities in Virginia said Egland had earlier killed his ex-wife, her boyfriend and the boyfriend's young son before taking his own young daughter on a frantic drive through Pennsylvania.

The girl, believed by Goldberg to be about 6 years old, was abandoned Saturday night by Egland, physically unharmed, at St. Luke's Hospital in Quakertown, apparently after the child's grandmother was killed. A note was left with the child, authorities said.

Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler said a nurse or orderly confronted Egland but the suspect flashed a pistol and got away. The hospital worker called police with a description of the suspect and his black pickup truck.

Just before midnight, the truck was stopped by state and local police in Doylestown Township. Officers said the suspect fired shots from a semiautomatic rifle, hitting an officer in the arm and shattering a windshield that sent glass into the face of a Dublin officer.

Goldberg said both officers had been released from a hospital.

The body, found in woods behind the gas station and a business under renovation, matched Egland's description, Goldberg said. The police chief said Egland had a gunshot wound but he would leave it to the coroner to determine whether it was self-inflicted.

Goldberg said that because of the lockdown, numerous residents were prevented from checking for storm damage at their homes.

"I know just from the way the phones were ringing in the police station that it was causing a great deal of anxiety among our people, and for us as well," he said. "It's a tragic event, but at least our residents can rest easy."

Police in Chesterfield County, Va., said Pennsylvania police had asked officers at 1 a.m. Sunday to check on the welfare of people at a home, where officers found the bodies of Egland's ex-wife, her boyfriend and his child. Names of the victims were not being released pending notification of relatives. A spokesman said the suspect had no known criminal history in the area.

Egland's former mother-in-law, 66-year-old Barbara Reuhl of Buckingham, was believed to have been killed Saturday night, Heckler said.

Goldberg said other family members were under police protection during the search for Egland, including one person who was at the police department. The police chief said he believed Egland's daughter girl was being cared for Sunday afternoon by relatives.

Flood worries and some relief in Irene's wake

Flood worries and some relief in Irene's wake

A New York City taxi is stranded in deep water on Manhattan’s West Side as Tropical Storm Irene passes through the city, Sunday, Aug. 28, 2011 in New York. Although downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm, Irene’s torrential rain couple with high winds and tides worked in concert to flood parts of the city.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Stripped of hurricane rank, Tropical Storm Irene spent the last of its fury Sunday, leaving treacherous flooding and millions without power - but an unfazed New York and relief that it was nothing like the nightmare authorities feared.

Slowly, the East Coast surveyed the damage, up to $7 billion by one private estimate. For many the danger had not passed: Rivers and creeks turned into raging torrents tumbling with limbs and parts of buildings in northern New England and upstate New York.

"This is not over," President Barack Obama said from the Rose Garden.

Flooding was widespread in Vermont, where parts of Brattleboro, Bennington and several other communities, were submerged. One woman was swept away and feared drowned in the Deerfield River.

Meanwhile, the nation's most populous region looked to a new week and the arduous process of getting back to normal.

New York lifted its evacuation order for 370,000 people and said it hoped to have its subway, shut down for the first time by a natural disaster, rolling again Monday, though maybe not in time for the morning commute. Philadelphia restarted its trains and buses.

"All in all," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, "we are in pretty good shape."

At least 21 people died in the storm, most of them when trees crashed through roofs or onto cars.

The main New York power company, Consolidated Edison, didn't have to go through with a plan to cut electricity to lower Manhattan to protect its equipment. Engineers had worried that salty seawater would damage the wiring.

And two pillars of the neighborhood came through the storm just fine: The New York Stock Exchange said it would be open for business on Monday, and the Sept. 11 memorial at the World Trade Center site didn't lose a single tree.

The center of Irene passed over Central Park at midmorning with the storm packing 65 mph winds. By evening, with its giant figure-six shape brushing over New England and drifting east, it was down to 50 mph. It was expected to drop below tropical storm strength - 39 mph - before midnight, and was to drift into Canada later Sunday or early Monday.

"Just another storm," said Scott Beller, who was at a Lowe's hardware store in the Long Island hamlet of Centereach, looking for a generator because his power was out.

The Northeast was spared the urban nightmare some had worried about - crippled infrastructure, stranded people and windows blown out of skyscrapers. Early assessments showed "it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be," New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said.

Later in the day, the extent of the damage became clearer. Flood waters were rising across New Jersey, closing side streets and major highways including the New Jersey Turnpike and Interstate 295. In Essex County, authorities used a five-ton truck to ferry people away from their homes as the Passaic River neared its expected crest Sunday night.

Twenty homes on Long Island Sound in Connecticut were destroyed by churning surf. The torrential rain chased hundreds of people in upstate New York from their homes and washed out 137 miles of the state's main highway.

In Massachusetts, the National Guard had to help people evacuate. The ski resort town of Wilmington, Vt., was flooded, but nobody could get to it because both state roads leading there were underwater.

"This is the worst I've ever seen in Vermont," said Mike O'Neil, the state emergency management director.

Rivers roared in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In the Hudson Valley town of New Paltz, N.Y., so many people were gathering to watch a rising river that authorities banned alcohol sales and ordered people inside. And in Rhode Island, which has a geography thick with bays, inlets and shoreline, authorities were worried about coastal flooding at evening high tide.

The entire Northeast has been drenched this summer with what has seemed like relentless rain, saturating the ground and raising the risk of flooding, even after the storm passes altogether.

The storm system knocked out power for 4 1/2 million people along the Eastern Seaboard. Power companies were picking through uprooted trees and reconnecting lines in the South and had restored electricity to hundreds of thousands of people by Sunday afternoon.

Under its first hurricane warning in a quarter-century, New York took extraordinary precautions. There were sandbags on Wall Street, tarps over subway grates and plywood on storefront windows.

The subway stopped rolling. Broadway and baseball were canceled.

With the worst of the storm over, hurricane experts assessed the preparations and concluded that, far from hyping the danger, authorities had done the right thing by being cautious.

Max Mayfield, former director of the National Hurricane Center, called it a textbook case.

"They knew they had to get people out early," he said. "I think absolutely lives were saved."

Mayfield credited government officials - but also the meteorologists. Days before the storm ever touched American land, forecast models showed it passing more or less across New York City.

"I think the forecast itself was very good, and I think the preparations were also good," said Keith Seitter, director of the American Meteorological Society. "If this exact same storm had happened without the preparations that everyone had taken, there would have been pretty severe consequences."

In the storm's wake, hundreds of thousands of passengers still had to get where they were going. Airlines said about 9,000 flights were canceled.

Officials said the three major New York-area airports will resume most flights Monday morning. Philadelphia International Airport reopened Sunday afternoon, and flights resumed around Washington, which took a glancing blow from the storm.

In the South, authorities still were not sure how much damage had been done. North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue said some parts of her state were unreachable. TV footage showed downed trees, toppled utility poles and power lines and mangled awnings.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell had initially warned that Irene could be a "catastrophic" monster with record storm surges of up to 8 feet. But the mayor Virginia Beach, Va., suggested on Twitter that the damage was not as bad as feared, as did the mayor of Ocean City, Md.

One of two nuclear reactors at Calvert Cliffs, Md., automatically went offline because of high winds. Constellation Energy Nuclear Group said the plant was safe.

In New York, some cabs were up to their wheel wells in water, and water rushed over a marina near the New York Mercantile Exchange, where gold and oil are traded. But the flooding was not extensive.

"Whether we dodged a bullet or you look at it and said, `God smiled on us,' the bottom line is, I'm happy to report, there do not appear to be any deaths attributable to the storm," Bloomberg said.

New York officials could not pinpoint when the trains would run again but warned that the Monday commute would be rough. The New York subway carries 5 million riders on an average weekday.

The casinos of Atlantic City, N.J., planned to reopen Monday at noon after state officials checked the integrity of the games, made sure the surveillance cameras work, and brought cash back into the cages under state supervision. All 11 casinos shut down for the storm, only the third time that has happened.

In Philadelphia, the mayor lifted the city's first state of emergency since 1986. The storm was blamed for the collapses of seven buildings, but no one was hurt and everyone was accounted for. People kept their eyes on the rivers. The Schuylkill was expected to reach 15 feet.

The 19 deaths attributed to the storm included six in North Carolina, four in Virginia, four in Pennsylvania, two in New York, two in rough surf in Florida and one each in Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey.

In an early estimate, consulting firm Kinetic Analysis Corp. figured total losses from the storm at $7 billion, with insured losses of $2 billion to $3 billion. The storm will take a bite out of Labor Day tourist business from the Outer Banks to the Jersey Shore to Cape Cod.

Irene was the first hurricane to make landfall in the continental United States since 2008, and came almost six years to the day after Katrina ravaged New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005.

As the East Coast cleans up, it can't afford to get too comfortable. Off the coast of Africa is a batch of clouds that computer models say will probably threaten the East Coast 10 days from now, Mayfield said. The hurricane center gave it a 40 percent chance of becoming a named storm over the next two days.

"Folks on the East Coast are going to get very nervous again," Mayfield said.

---(equals)

Weiss reported from Nags Head, N.C. Associated Press writers Christine Armario in Miami; Jessica Gresko in Ocean City, Md.; Brock Vergakis in Virginia Beach, Va.; Marc Levy in Chester, Pa.; Seth Borenstein and Christopher S. Rugaber in Washington; and Samantha Bomkamp, Verena Dobnik, Jonathan Fahey, Beth Fouhy, Tom Hays, Colleen Long and Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this report.

Subways stop; mayor says 1,400 in NYC shelters

Subways stop; mayor says 1,400 in NYC shelters

Thomas Walker, of Merrick, N.Y., who runs a business on the Coney Island boardwalk, looks out over the adjacent closed beach as he and others await the arrival of Hurricane Irene, Saturday, Aug. 27 2011, in the Coney Island section of New York.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The nation's largest subway system began to shut down Saturday and the typically bustling city became unusually quiet as the first rain from Hurricane Irene fell on Manhattan.

Sidewalks, streets and bridges were nearly empty. Broadway shows and sporting events were canceled. Businesses were closed and subway riders raced to catch the last trains.

In an unprecedented move, more 370,000 people in flood-prone areas were told to get out ahead of the storm. There was no specific number on how many people had followed the order, but only 1,400 people were staying in city shelters. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said by some building estimates, between 50 to 80 percent of people had left.

At the Seventh Avenue station in Brooklyn's Park Slope section, more than a dozen people waited for one of the final subway runs.

"What I'm hoping is that they will run trains for the next hour or two to pick up the stragglers," said Kate Sandberg, who was headed to visit a friend.

The city had begged people for days not to wait until the last minute, and offered rides out of the danger area to residents who needed it. Nursing homes and hospitals started evacuating people Thursday.

It was the first time the city has shut down the entire subway system because of weather. Final subway and bus runs started at noon and it would take about eight hours before the entire transit system was shuttered, city officials said.

Several New York landmarks were inside the evacuation zone, including the ferries that take tourists to the Statue of Liberty. Construction stopped throughout the city, and workers at the site of the World Trade Center dismantled a crane and secured equipment.

Bloomberg said there would be no effect on the Sept. 11 memorial opening the day after the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

On Wall Street, sandbags were placed around subway grates nearest the East River, which is expected to surge as the hurricane nears New York.

Bloomberg warned those who decided to stay that elevators in public housing apartments would be shut down. Other high-rises were also likely to stop elevators so people don't get trapped inside them if the power does go out. And the city's largest utility said it may cut off power to 6,500 customers in Lower Manhattan and Wall Street if the flooding gets bad. Turning off electricity ahead of time helps reduce the damage to power lines.

In Brooklyn, people trickled into a shelter at a large high school, carrying garbage bags of clothing. In some cases, they pushed carts of personal belongings and luggage.

"We'd rather be safe than sorry," said Evette Roblebo, who arrived in a car filled with friends. She said she would have come earlier but she had to work. "Our building is old. So I took out the air conditioners, closed the windows and locked up. But I think we'll be fine."

In at least one housing project in Red Hook, a low-lying area in Brooklyn where the shipping lanes from the Erie Canal ended, residents said management told them they were going to shut down the water and power to get them to leave.

"We had to leave," said Jacquelyne Pollard. "But we'd rather be here where there's water and power and be sure we're safe." she said.

The transit system won't reopen until at least Monday, after pumps remove water from flooded subway stations. Even on a dry day, 13 million to 15 million gallons of water are removed from the tunnels deep underground. The Long Island Rail Road and other tracks were also being stopped.

The city's public transit system carries about 5 million passengers on an average weekday and officials didn't immediately report any problems during the final hours of the evacuation.

At the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, stragglers scurried down the steps of the 4 and 5 lines to Brooklyn.

"This makes my day!" Randy Callo said as the doors closed on one of the final trains.

Salvatore Laudadio missed that train, and was sweating it out for one more ride to Brooklyn. He had already been on several buses and subway transfers.

"I got kind of a late start so I've been a little worried but I think this will all work out," he said, holding his bags.

Then the train rolled up and he got on.

The last time the system was seriously hobbled was an August 2007 rainstorm that disabled or delayed every one of the city's subway lines. It was also shut down after the 9/11 attacks and during a 2005 strike.

In Brooklyn's famed Coney Island, known for its boardwalk and amusement park, Bloomberg urged residents who needed to leave to get out right away.

"Staying behind is dangerous, staying behind is foolish, and it's against the law, and we urge everyone in the evacuation zones not to wait until gale-force winds," he said. "The time to leave is right now."

Transit fares and tolls were waived in evacuated areas. Officials hoped most residents would stay with family and friends, and nearly 100 shelters, with a capacity of 71,000 people, were opened.

At 17 Battery Place, a 36-floor luxury rental building, Daryl Edelman and his wife, Regina, were leaving - suitcase packed and their small white dog, Bitsy Bananas, tucked into a case.

"What the mayor did - shutting down the transportation system - is more dangerous than the storm," said Daryl Edelman, a comic book writer. "People could be left stranded - especially the elderly."

Bloomberg said he hoped the evacuation wasn't necessary, but officials needed to be cautious with what is considered a dangerous storm.

"You can't prepare for the best case. You have to prepare for the worst case," he said.

Bloomberg weathered criticism after a Dec. 26 storm dumped nearly two feet of snow that seemed to catch officials by surprise. Subway trains, buses and ambulances got stuck in the snow, some for hours, and streets were impassable for days. Bloomberg ultimately called it an "inadequate and unacceptable" response.

Taxis in New York City were to switch from metered fares to zone fares, meaning riders would be charged by which part of the city they were being driven to, rather than how far they were being taken.

About 4,500 taxis were on the streets of Manhattan, which was just below an average day.

Cab driver Mohammed Hassan started a shift early Saturday at his home in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn and made his way to midtown Manhattan. Downtown was already empty, he said.

"If it's dangerous, I'm going home," said Hassan, a cabbie for 28 years. But "I need the money."

The five main New York City-area airports also closed at noon Saturday to arriving domestic and international flights. Three of them, Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty, are among the nation's busiest.

Irene made landfall in North Carolina on Saturday, and was expected to roll up the Interstate 95 corridor reaching New York on Sunday. A hurricane warning was issued for the city Friday afternoon, the first since Gloria in 1985.

"Heed the warnings," Bloomberg urged, his shirt soaking as the rain fell. "It isn't cute to say `I'm tougher than any storm.' I hope this is not necessary, but it's certainly prudent."

About 1.6 million people live in Manhattan, and about 6.8 million live in the city's other four boroughs.

In the past 200 years, New York has seen only a few significant hurricanes. In September 1821, a hurricane raised tides by 13 feet in an hour and flooded the southernmost tip of Manhattan in an area that now includes Wall Street and the World Trade Center memorial. In 1938, a storm dubbed the Long Island Express came ashore about 75 miles east of the city on neighboring Long Island and then hit New England, killing 700 people and leaving 63,000 homeless.

And in 1944, Midtown was flooded, where Times Square, Broadway theaters and the Empire State Building are located.

Irene begins destructive run, kills 3 in NC, Va.

Irene begins destructive run, kills 3 in NC, Va.

Wind and water whip across the beach as the effects of Hurricane Irene are felt in Nags Head, N.C., Saturday, Aug. 27, 2011

MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. (AP) -- Hurricane Irene opened its assault on the Eastern Seaboard on Saturday by lashing the North Carolina coast with wind as strong as 115 mph and pounding shoreline homes with waves. Farther north, authorities readied a massive shutdown of trains and airports, with 2 million people ordered out of the way.

At least three people died because of the storm.

The center of the storm, which was estimated to be some 500 miles wide, passed over North Carolina's Outer Banks for its official landfall just after 7:30 a.m. EDT. The hurricane's vast reach traced the East Coast from Myrtle Beach, S.C., to just below Cape Cod. Tropical storm conditions battered Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, with the worst to come.

On Saturday afternoon, forecasters said Irene's effects could be felt as far north as Canada even after it weakens. A tropical storm warning extended from the U.S. border to Nova Scotia's southern coast.

Irene weakened slightly, with sustained winds down to 85 mph from about 100 a day earlier, making it a Category 1, the least threatening on the scale. The National Hurricane Center reported gusts of 115 mph and waves as high as 7 feet.

At least three deaths were directly caused by the storm. In Nash County, N.C., emergency officials said a man was crushed by a large limb that blew off a tree. In Newport News, Va., a city spokeswoman said an 11-year-old boy was killed when Irene's winds sent a tree crashing through his apartment building. Winds had been gusting well above 60 mph in the area. Also in Virginia, someone was killed when a tree fell onto a car.

Hurricane-force winds arrived near Jacksonville, N.C., at first light, and wind-whipped rain lashed the resort town of Nags Head. Tall waves covered the beach, and the surf pushed as high as the backs of some of the houses and hotels fronting the strand.

"There's nothing you can do now but wait. You can hear the wind and it's scary," said Leon Reasor, who rode out the storm in the Outer Banks town of Buxton. "Things are banging against the house. I hope it doesn't get worse, but I know it will. I just hate hurricanes."

At least two piers on the Outer Banks were wiped out, the roof of a car dealership was ripped away, and a hospital in Morehead City was running on generators. In Jones County, part of the roof was torn from the county civic center, where some 70 people were seeking shelter.

In all, more than 800,000 people were without power on the East Coast.

The Red Cross had opened 63 shelters in North Carolina by Saturday afternoon, with more than 5,573 people registering to stay. At the shelter on the Elizabeth City State University campus, children shrieked and played while their parents watched the storm unfold. Latoya Bryant watched her 2- and 4-year-olds play, saying she told them they could go home once the storm was over.

"They want to play in the rain, though," Bryant said. "You can't play in this rain."

In the Northeast, unaccustomed to tropical weather of any strength, authorities made plans to bring the basic structures of travel grinding to a halt. The New York City subway, the largest in the United States, was making its last runs at noon, and all five area airports were accepting only a few final hours' worth of flights.

The New York transit system carries 5 million people on weekdays, fewer on weekends, and has never been shut for weather. Transit systems in New Jersey, Baltimore and Philadelphia also announced plans to shut down. Washington declared a state of emergency. Days earlier, buildings had been evacuated after an earthquake rattled the D.C. area.

New York City ordered 300,000 people to leave low-lying areas, including the Battery Park City neighborhood at the southern tip of Manhattan, the beachfront Rockaways in Queens and Coney Island in Brooklyn. But it was not clear how many people would get out, or how they would do it.

"How can I get out of Coney Island?" said Abe Feinstein, 82, who has lived for half a century on the eighth floor of a building overlooking the boardwalk. "What am I going to do? Run with this walker?"

Authorities in New York said they would not arrest people who chose to stay, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned on Friday: "If you don't follow this, people may die."

Streets and subway cars were much emptier than on a typical Saturday morning. On Wall Street, sandbags were placed around subway grates nearest the East River, which is expected to surge as the worst hits New York.

The city's largest power company said it could cut power to some neighborhoods if the storm causes serious flooding. Salt water can damage power lines, and cutting power would speed repairs.

In all, evacuation orders covered about 2.3 million people, including 1 million in New Jersey, 315,000 in Maryland, 300,000 in North Carolina, 200,000 in Virginia and 100,000 in Delaware. Authorities and experts said it was probably the most people ever threatened by a single storm in the United States.

Airlines said 8,300 flights were canceled, including 3,000 on Saturday. Greyhound suspended bus service between Richmond, Va., and Boston. Amtrak canceled trains in the Northeast for Sunday.

Forecasters said the core of Irene would roll up the mid-Atlantic coast Saturday night and over southern New England on Sunday. Late Saturday morning, Irene was centered about 95 miles south of Norfolk, Va. It was moving north-northeast at 15 mph. Maximum sustained winds remained around 85 mph.

North of the Outer Banks, the storm pounded the Hampton Roads region of southeast Virginia, a jagged network of inlets and rivers that floods easily. Emergency officials there were less worried about the wind and more about storm surge, the high waves that accompany a hurricane. Gas stations there were low on fuel, and grocery stores scrambled to keep water and bread on the shelves.

In Delaware, Gov. Jack Markell ordered an evacuation of coastal areas on the peninsula that the state shares with Maryland and Virginia. In Atlantic City, N.J., all 11 casinos announced they would shut down for only the third time since gambling became legal there 33 years ago.

In Baltimore's Fells Point, one of the city's oldest waterfront neighborhoods, people filled sandbags and placed them at building entrances. A few miles away at the Port of Baltimore, vehicles and cranes continued to unload huge cargo ships that were rushing to offload and get away from the storm.

A steady rain fell on the boardwalk at Ocean City, Md., where a small amusement park was shut down and darkened - including a ride called the Hurricane. Businesses were boarded up, many painted with messages like "Irene don't be mean!"

Charlie Koetzle, 55, who has lived in Ocean City for a decade, came to the boardwalk in swim trunks and flip-flops to look at the sea. While his neighbors and most everyone else had evacuated, Koetzle said he told authorities he wasn't leaving. To ride out the storm, he had stocked up with soda, roast beef, peanut butter, tuna, nine packs of cigarettes and a detective novel.

Of the storm, he said: "I always wanted to see one."

Irene evacuations, subway shutdown ordered in NYC

Irene evacuations, subway shutdown ordered in NYC

A shopper hunts for water bottles among the empty shelves at a downtown Manhattan supermarket where workers claim over 400 cases were purchased in a few hours, Friday, Aug. 26, 2011, in New York. Mayor Bloomberg advised all New Yorkers to gather supplies as the region girded for wind, rain, and flooding as the storm stood poised to bear down on an already saturated New York state.

NEW YORK (AP) -- More than 300,000 people were told Friday to evacuate and New York ordered buses, planes and its entire subway system shut down as Hurricane Irene marched up the East Coast.

It was the first time part of the nation's largest city was evacuated. And never before has the entire mass transit system been shuttered because of a storm.

Despite not knowing how the city would react, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was confident people would get out of the storm's way.

"Waiting until the last minute is not a smart thing to do," Bloomberg said. "This is life-threatening."

Irene was expected to make landfall in North Carolina on Saturday, then roll along the East Coast before hitting near Manhattan on Sunday.

A hurricane warning was issued for the city Friday afternoon and forecasters said if the storm stays on its current path, skyscraper windows could shatter and debris will be tossed around. Streets in southern tip of the city could be under a few feet of water. Bloomberg warned people to stay inside when Irene does hit.

Several New York landmarks were under the evacuation order, including the Battery Park City area, where tourists catch ferries to the Statue of Liberty, and Coney Island, famed for its boardwalk and amusement park. The beachfront community of Rockaways and other neighborhoods around the city were also told to be out by Saturday at 5 p.m.

"I would think that the vast bulk will comply," Bloomberg said of the evacuation order. "Unfortunately, there's a handful who will not comply until it's too late. And at that point in time, you can really get stuck."

Eighty-two-year-old Abe Feinstein, who has lived in Coney Island since the early 1960s, said he wasn't going anywhere.

"How can I get out of Coney Island? What am I going to do? Run with this walker?" Feinstein said.

The retiree lives on the eighth floor of a building that overlooks the boardwalk; his daughter lives on the third floor. Feinstein watched Hurricane Gloria in 1985 from an apartment down the street.

"I think I have nothing to worry about," he said. "I've been through bad weather before. It's just not going to be a problem for us."

Other initial signs indicated no sense of urgency. By early Friday evening, two evacuation shelters in the Coney Island area were still empty. Nearly 100 shelters were set to open, with a capacity of 71,000 people. The city said it could open more if needed, but officials believed many people would stay with friends or family.

The city began evacuating nursing homes and five hospitals Thursday. Getting the rest of the hundreds of thousands of people out will be particularly difficult. In all, New York has about 1.6 million people in Manhattan and about 6.8 million in the city's other four boroughs.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said they can't run the transit system once sustained winds reach 39 mph, and they need eight hours to move trains and equipment to safety. The subway system won't reopen until at least Monday.

Pumps will have to remove water from flooded subway stations. Even on a dry day, about 200 pump rooms remove between 13 million to 15 million gallons of water from the subway system because water seeps into the tunnels, which run from just below street level to 180 feet underground.

Bridges could also be closed as the storm approaches, clogging traffic in an already congested city.

The city faced its first hurricane since 1985 when Gloria hit Long Island as a Category 2 storm with winds gusts of up to 100 mph. Irene is expected to be a Category 1, with winds of at least 74 mph, when it hits New York.

The mayor warned residents not to be fooled by the sunny weather Friday and said police officers would use loudspeakers on patrol vehicles to spread the word about the evacuation.

"We do not have the manpower to go door-to-door and drag people out of their homes," he said. "Nobody's going to get fined. Nobody's going to go to jail. But if you don't follow this, people might die."

Construction was stopping. Workers were securing scaffolding and crews at the site of the World Trade Center dismantled a crane. Bloomberg said there would be no affect on the Sept. 11 memorial opening. Concerts and other events were canceled.

In a city where many residents don't own a car, Bloomberg said he still believed officials could handle any overflow of the transit system.

"Nobody expects you to go walk 10 miles," he said. "You'll get to the shelter, it's our responsibility and we think that we can handle it."

The evacuation posed a logistical challenge. For those with cars, parking is available at the city's evacuation centers. From there, each family will be assigned to a shelter. Buses will run from the evacuation centers to the shelters.

In the Queens community of the Rockaways, more than 111,000 people live on a barrier peninsula connected to the city by two bridges and to Long Island to the west. There is no subway service there.

The MTA has never before halted its entire system - which carries about 5 million passengers on an average weekday - before a storm, though it was seriously hobbled by an August 2007 rainstorm that disabled or delayed every one of the city's subway lines. The last planned shutdown of the entire transit system was during a 2005 strike.

In the last 200 years, New York has seen only a few significant hurricanes. In September of 1821, a hurricane raised tides by 13 feet in an hour and flooded all of Manhattan south of Canal Street, the southernmost tip of the city. The area now includes Wall Street and the World Trade Center memorial.

In 1938, a storm dubbed the Long Island Express came ashore about 75 miles east of the city on neighboring Long Island and then hit New England, killing 700 people and leaving 63,000 homeless.