NEW YORK, UNITED STATES.- The Navy is sending three amphibious ships towards the New York and New England region in anticipation that the ships may be called upon to assist civilian authorities responding to Hurricane Irene, according to a spokesman for the Navy on the USS Wasp.
The Wasp, according to Lt. Cmdr. Jim Krohne, will be joined by the USS Oak Hill and the USS New York -- a ship built in part with steel from the wreckage of the World Trade Center. Now the ship-born-of-a-man-made-tragedy is prepared to help its namesake city respond to a natural disaster.
The three ships are all capable of providing helicopters and floating landing craft for a wide array of humanitarian response, including search-and-rescue, road and debris clearing, emergency communications, emergency medical support, and even an air-traffic control if needed.
Krohne said the three ships -- part of a larger unit called Amphibious Task Force 26 -- are expected to arrive off the Northeast coast on Monday. They will be able to start flying aid in as the ships get within 120 miles from the area they would be helping.
But the whole mission is still a matter of preparedness, because no official orders have been given to the Navy to start having the ships join the relief effort.
Tropical Storm Irene causes damaging and deadly floods, rushing waters
Dangerous, damaging floodwaters emerged Sunday night as one of the biggest threats from Irene, which impacted millions with its strong winds and drenching rains over its three-day run up the East Coast.
The storm, which was a hurricane for days before weakening to tropical storm status earlier Sunday, was blamed for at least 18 deaths across seven states. The U.S. government estimated that the cost from wind damage alone is expected to top $1 billion, with downed power lines leaving more than 4 million people without electricity.
"I want people to understand that this is not over," President Barack Obama said Sunday evening from Washington. "The impacts of this storm will be felt for some time, and the recovery effort will last for weeks or longer."
Some of the biggest, continuing headaches related to flooding, as tidal storm surges and overflowing, fast-moving rivers left homes in North Carolina and points northward awash.
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Flood warnings and watches were in effect Sunday night for much of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, eastern New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
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N.J. storefront flooded up to ceiling Numerous "swift-water" rescue teams were dispatched Sunday night around Vermont, where state emergency management spokesman Mark Bosma said some small towns were "entirely covered with water" and people, including a woman who was in labor, were stranded in schools and cars.
Vermont State Police Capt. Ray Keefe said that Wilmington is "cut off," hundreds of roads had been closed, and some homes were washed off foundations and into lakes. And "conditions continue to worsen dramatically" in Vermont's capital of Montpelier, city manager William Fraser said Sunday night, noting National Weather Service warnings of rising river waters that have spurred evacuations and will cause "major flooding" downtown early Monday morning.
"The conditions today have been awful," Bosma said. "Water is pretty much everywhere."
Also hard-hit was New Jersey, where initial fears about coastal flooding -- which had prompted the evacuation of more than 1 million people from the shore -- had given way to fresh concerns about inland flooding.
Flooding inundates parts of New Jersey
That left many residents like Guy Pascarello, whose family's Secaucus home of 40 years was declared uninhabitable after it became inundated by three-foot-high waters, trying to figure out what to do next.
"I don't know (what we'll do), this is all new ground," Pascarello said. "The good news is that it's just stuff. This is a home and we love our home, but it's just things."
Even locations well inland, like Princeton Junction about halfway between New York City and Princeton, had waters as high as 12 feet that covered roads and bridges, resident Edward Picco said. And streets in downtown Millburn saw major flooding when the Rahway River overflowed early Sunday morning, said Lt. Peter Eakley, the town's deputy emergency management coordinator.
"It's crazy. ... The water is moving between buildings, up, down, all sorts of different directions," Rich Graessle told CNN's iReport from Millburn.
Along the shore in Long Beach, New York, water poured underneath the boardwalk and into the city's downtown.
Outside Philadelphia, meanwhile, waters climbed to street-sign levels in Darby, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said, with the water sending "couches, furniture, all kinds of stuff floating down the street." Two buildings collapsed in Philadelphia, Nutter told reporters, but no one was injured.
Get state-by-state developments
One family paid tribute to the storm by naming their child, born at 12:01 a.m. Sunday, Manuel Hurricane Cooper, said Riddle Hospital spokeswoman Bridget Therriault in Media, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia.
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Those living around the Gilboa Dam in upstate New York, about 50 miles southwest of Albany, were told to evacuate Sunday afternoon due to concerns that the dam could be overwhelmed by "higher-than-predicted amounts of rain."
Farther south in New York City, officials worked Sunday night to return the city to normal. Hours earlier, the Hudson River overflowed in lower Manhattan, receding only after massive amounts of water spilled over jogging paths and into at least one nearby apartment building. Water also lapped over the banks of the city's East River and onto Orchard Beach and Yankee Stadium parking lots in the Bronx.
There were no reports of deaths, though firefighters did help evacuate dozens from flooded homes in areas of Staten Island due to neck-deep water, the New York City Fire Department said.
Lines on the Metro-North system flooded, eroding tracks and causing significant damage, said Metropolitan Transit Authority chief Jay Walder. But as inspections and clean-up continued, the system -- which was shut down at noon Saturday -- took its first steps to returning with the resumption of some bus services at 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
In addition, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that the area's three major airports -- Newark Liberty in northern New Jersey and LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy in the New York City boroughs of Queens -- will reopen Monday, two days after they shut down. NJ Transit rail service is suspended "until further notice," except for the Atlantic City rail line, but light rail and bus service will resume Monday.
"All in all, we are in pretty good shape because of the exhaustive steps, I think, we took to prepare for whatever comes our way," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
It's all due to a storm that first made landfall at 7:30 a.m. Saturday in North Carolina, then paralleled the coast, and slammed into Little Egg Inlet, New Jersey, as a Category 1 hurricane around 5:30 a.m. Sunday, said the National Hurricane Center said.
By 8 p.m., Tropical Storm Irene had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph and was nearing the U.S.-Canadian border, the center reported. according to the center.
A 5-year-old's hurricane reports
One woman is "feared dead" in Vermont after being swept away in raging waters in Wilmington, said Bosma. In addition, officials have reported six deaths in North Carolina, four in Virginia, four in Pennsylvania and one each in Connecticut, Maryland, Florida and New Jersey. A firefighter who was initially reported dead in New Jersey is still alive and in "intensive care" at a hospital, Gov. Chris Christie said Sunday night.
And as the governor of Virginia, parts of which saw 16 inches of rain and top winds clocked at 83 mph, warned Sunday that more bad news may be coming.
"Undoubtedly, there will be more reports of damage, of injuries, perhaps fatalities," Gov. Bob McDonnell told reporters.
Flanking Obama during his afternoon statement, FEMA director Craig Fugate vowed Sunday that authorities will work with those impacted by the wind, rain, storm surge and resulting flooding.
"When the disaster comes off the news and no one is paying attention, we still don't go home," he said. "We know we've got a lot of work ahead of us."
Obama advierte que el peligro de "Irene aún no ha acabado"
"El impacto de la tormenta se sentirá por algún tiempo y la recuperación puede durar semanas o más", añadió el Presidente estadounidense en un mensaje desde la Casa Blanca.
- Nueva York intenta volver a la calma tras el paso de "Irene"
- "Irene" pierde fuerza de huracán y se degrada a tormenta tropical Huracán
- Irene azota Nueva York y alcalde pide a ciudadanos no salir de sus casas
- Aeropuertos de Nueva York volverán a operar durante este lunes
Así fue el paso del huracán Irene por Nueva York Aunque "Irene" se ha convertido en una tormenta tropical y se ha debilitado, sigue siendo una "tormenta peligrosa" y sus riesgos no han acabado, advirtió hoy el Presidente de EE.UU., Barack Obama.
En una declaración desde la Rosaleda de la Casa Blanca, Obama indicó que, entre otras cosas, aún hay riesgos de inundaciones, debido a las crecidas de los ríos por las lluvias traídas por "Irene", y más personas podrían quedarse sin electricidad, además de los 4,5 millones que ya han quedado sin el servicio de energía en toda la costa este.
El Presidente, quien compareció ante la prensa acompañado de la secretaria de Seguridad Nacional, Janet Napolitano, y Craig Fugate, el director de FEMA, el organismo encargado de responder a los desastres naturales en el país, subrayó que el impacto de Irene "se dejará notar aún durante un tiempo".
Los trabajos de los equipos de asistencia aún se prolongarán por semanas, agregó el mandatario, quien no aceptó preguntas de los periodistas.
"Las continuas lluvias pueden tener un impacto, incluso, bastante lejos del centro de la tormenta", advirtió Obama, tras reiterar que "Irene" "sigue siendo una tormenta peligrosa que sigue produciendo fuertes lluvias".
"Irene", que tomó tierra el sábado en Carolina del Norte como huracán de categoría 1 en la escala de Saffir Simpson, de un máximo de cinco, y que hoy pasó por Nueva York convertida ya en una tormenta tropical, ha dejado al menos catorce muertos en los estados de Connecticut, Carolina del Norte, Florida, Nueva Jersey y Virginia.
También ha causado la pérdida del suministro eléctrico a 4,5 millones de personas y daños que, según los cálculos iniciales, podrían oscilar entre los mil y los 2.000 millones de dólares.
A lo largo de las últimas horas, a su paso a lo largo de Nueva Inglaterra, en el noreste del país, "Irene" ha continuado perdiendo fuerza y sus vientos son ahora de 80 kilómetros por hora, frente a los 140 con los que entró en Carolina del Norte.
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