Irene rakes up East Coast, shuts down New York (Reuters)

MOREHEAD CITY, North Carolina (Reuters) ? Hurricane Irene charged up the East Coast Saturday toward New York, shutting down the city, and millions of Americans hunkered down as the giant storm halted transport and caused massive power blackouts.

"The storm is coming," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the more than 8 million people who live in the United States' most populous city that includes Wall Street, one of the world's major financial centers.

From the Carolinas to Maine, tens of millions of people were in the path of the 580 mile-wide storm that howled ashore in North Carolina at daybreak Saturday, dumping torrential rain, felling trees and knocking out power.

At least seven deaths were reported in North Carolina, Virginia and Florida. Several million people were under evacuation orders on the U.S. East Coast.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, which connects Virginia's Eastern Shore with the mainland and is regarded as a modern engineering wonder, was closed because of the winds and rain.

This year has been one of the most extreme for weather in U.S. history, with $35 billion in losses so far from floods, tornadoes and heat waves. President Barack Obama was keeping a close eye on preparations for the hurricane.

New York City's normally bustling streets turned eerily quiet after authorities ordered unprecedented major evacuations and shut down its airports and subways.

Commuters were left to flag down yellow taxis and livery cabs that were patrolling largely deserted streets.

Irene caused transport chaos in the eastern United States, as airline, rail and transit systems in New York and other cities started sweeping weekend shutdowns.

The Coast Guard closed the port of Philadelphia, while New York Harbor remained open with some restrictions.

"We are trying to get to Boston and that is not going to happen. We're just stuck here," Rachel Karten said from the near-empty Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York. "We didn't think they would shut down everything."

Irene left nearly 1 million people without power in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware Saturday and New York prepared for possible wide blackouts.

With winds of 8O miles per hour (130 km per hour), Irene had weakened to a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale. But it was expected to approach New York Saturday night at or near hurricane strength, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Irene came ashore near North Carolina's Cape Lookout around 7:30 a.m. EDT, and then chugged up the coast on a north-northeast track. By 8 p.m. (0000 GMT), the center was 30 miles east southeast of Norfolk, Virginia, and 300 miles south southwest of New York City.

Irene could slacken to a tropical storm by the time it hits New England Sunday, but the Miami-based hurricane center said that would make little difference in the impact from its damaging winds, flooding rains and dangerous storm surge.

"I would advise people not to focus that much on Category 1, 2 or 3 ... if you're in a hurricane, it's a big deal," U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a conference call. "This remains a large and dangerous storm," she said.

"DANGEROUS OUT THERE"

Bloomberg told New Yorkers Irene was a life-threatening hurricane and urged them to heed evacuation orders.

"This is a storm which if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, could be fatal ... It is dangerous out there," the mayor said in one of several public appeals. He urged New Yorkers to stay indoors to avoid flying debris, flooding or the risk of being electrocuted by downed power lines.

Some 370,000 city residents were ordered to leave their homes in low-lying areas, many of them in parts of the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens and in downtown Manhattan.

But many were unwilling to evacuate. Nicholas Vigliotti, 24, an auditor who lives in a new high-rise building along the Brooklyn waterfront, said he saw no point.

"Even if there was a flood, I live on the fifth floor," he said. But he was moving his car to safety in a higher spot.

The hurricane center said that Irene's winds could impact more strongly on the higher floors of skyscrapers.

The Miami-based center forecast a storm surge of up to 8 feet for Long Island and metropolitan New York when Irene passes Sunday.

That would easily top the flood walls protecting the south end of Manhattan if it comes at high tide around 8 a.m. Sunday, hurricane expert Jeff Masters of private forecaster Weather Underground wrote in his blog.

When Irene hit the North Carolina coast at daybreak, winds howled through the power lines, rain fell in sheets and streets were flooded or littered with signs and tree branches.

"NATURE DANCING"

"You look outside and it's like nature is dancing for us," said Joe Toledo, who left his mobile home with his wife, Cindy, to take shelter in a hotel in Havelock, North Carolina.

Two people were killed by falling trees in Virginia, one a young boy. Irene caused four deaths in North Carolina, Governor Bev Perdue said. One man died of a heart attack while boarding up his house.

In New Smyrna Beach, Florida, a surfer riding large waves kicked up by Irene was killed, local media reported.

North Carolina Governor Perdue said there could be "a major hit" to tobacco crops, poultry and livestock in her state.

Summer vacationers fled beach towns and resort islands. More than 1 million people left the New Jersey shore, leaving the glitzy Atlantic City casinos dark and empty.

Shoppers stripped the supermarkets and hardware stores of food, water, flashlights, batteries and generators.

In Washington, the skies were dark in the late afternoon as winds picked up and torrential rain formed pools of water in streets. Traffic died down and only a small handful of tourists dressed in rain gear gathered outside the White House.

Obama cut his Martha's Vineyard vacation short by a day, returning to closely follow preparations for the hurricane.

Irene was the first hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Ike pounded Texas in 2008. Emergency workers were mindful of Hurricane Katrina, which swamped New Orleans, killed up to 1,800 people and caused $80 billion in damage in 2005.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the military stood ready to help. In Washington, Irene forced the postponement of a ceremony Sunday to dedicate a new memorial to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Tens of thousands of people, including Obama, had been expected to attend.

The District of Columbia gave out 7,000 sandbags for residents in low-lying areas to use in case of flooding.

Irene swept through the Caribbean as a Category 3 hurricane earlier in the week, bringing floods that killed one person in Puerto Rico and at least three in the Dominican Republic.

(Additional reporting by Joe Rauch and Jim Brumm in Wilmington, N.C.; Pascal Fletcher in Miami; Basil Katz and Jonathan Allen in New York; Susan Cornwell and John Crawley in Washington; and Michael Fitzpatrick in Long Branch, New Jersey; Writing by Jane Sutton and Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Eric Beech)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110828/us_nm/us_storm_irene

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