New York quiet as residents wait for storm
NEW YORK — New York City hunkered down Saturday as mass transit closed, theaters went dark and some residents of low- lying neighborhoods evacuated to public shelters before Hurricane Irene’s expected arrival.
With rain falling and winds increasing, the National Weather Service said Irene will strike in full force today at 9 a.m. It may be a Category 1 hurricane, with winds of at least 74 mph and 20 inches of rain, the service said.
The first hurricane warnings for the New York area since 1985 prompted Manhattan residents and tourists to retreat inside apartments and hotels, casting an uneasy quiet on the “city that never sleeps.” Bloomingdale’s department store boarded display windows, Broadway theaters said the show must not go on and the Mets canceled their game with the Atlanta Braves.
“It’s not even like this on holidays,” said Alberto Cruz, superintendent of a building at 22nd Street near Second Avenue. “There’s no people on the street,” said Cruz, who’s lived in Gramercy Park for 20 years. “That’s the weirdest thing.”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered mandatory evacuation for about 370,000 people in several neighborhoods including Coney Island, the Rockaways and Battery Park City.
As of about 7:30 p.m., about 5,500 people had entered 78 city shelters, mostly in public school buildings with 35,000 city-issued cots and space for 35,000 more, the city said.
The city intends to shut electric power, including elevator service, at public-housing units in flood-prone areas serving some 40,000 residents, the mayor said.
“You must evacuate now,” Bloomberg said in televised remarks. “Your buildings are shutting down. Your elevators are shutting down. Your boilers are shutting down. And it will be much too dangerous to stay.”
Consolidated Edison, the city’s electricity provider, said it may shut power to some areas before the hurricane peaks, including a swath of lower Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge to the southern tip of the island east of Broadway. It would take several days before power is restored, said Con Ed’s chairman and chief executive officer, Kevin Burke.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority suspended all service on subways, commuter railroads and buses and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey closed Kennedy, Newark and LaGuardia airports and its PATH commuter trains between Manhattan and New Jersey.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo deployed at least 1,900 members of the Army and Air National Guard to Manhattan and Long Island, according to an emailed statement, and announced he would close all major bridges spanning New York’s waterways when wind speeds exceed 60 mph.
The guard will “help secure, protect and recover the World Trade Center site, where there’s some concern about flooding,” and protect assets owned by the Port Authority and the MTA, said Howard Glaser, Cuomo’s director of state operations.
Nursing homes and hospitals in the most vulnerable areas, including New York University Medical Center on the East Side of Manhattan, transferred 7,000 residents and patients from 22 facilities during the past two days, Bloomberg said.
Outside the Morning Star Café at 50th Street and Second Avenue, owner George Vavilis, 40, had hammered up two plywood boards to protect the diner’s main window.
“We were going to keep it open but being there’s no trains or mass transit and the bridges and tunnels are going to be closed, there’s no way in or out,” he said. “There wouldn’t be any business.”
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie suspended commuter rail service and widened mandatory evacuations in Monmouth County. Earlier he ordered people out of Atlantic County, where Atlantic City is the second-largest U.S. gambling center.
In Greenwich, Conn., officials urged evacuation for more than 3,000 residents. Police went door to door to speak with residents about the dangers of staying.
Coastal towns such as Stamford and Darien are threatened because a high tide will come at roughly the same time Hurricane Irene is expected to make landfall.
“I have urged everyone who is in a flood-prone area to evacuate,” Gov. Dannel Malloy said in a statement.
- With assistance from Peter S. Green, Alexis Leondis, Chris Dolmetsch, Noah Buhayar, Elizabeth Ody, Matt Townsend and Paul Burkhardt in New York; Joel Stonington in Connecticut and Terrence Dopp and Elise Young in New Jersey.
WASHINGTON POST-BLOOMBERG--08-27-11 2033ET