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Irene made U.S. landfall in North Carolina Saturday and then slowly swept up the coast for the rest of the weekend as it was downgraded to a tropical storm, and caused 11 deaths and billions in damages.
August 28, 2011 | 5
This visible image of Hurricane Irene from the MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite was taken on August 26, 2011, at 2:05 p.m. EDT, when the tropical cyclone was off the Carolinas.
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"Peaches" howls beside a tree that fell on her owners' house around 1 p.m. Eastern on August 27 in Louisburg, N.C.
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Broadway theaters were dark on Saturday afternoon, August 27. Performances were cancelled Saturday and Sunday due to the imminent arrival of Irene.
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New York City shut down more than 660 miles of passenger service tracks.
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Tourists sat on sandbags in front of a store in Times Square area, on Saturday, August 27, prior to Irene's arrival.
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Most New Yorkers took Irene in stride, but some residents boarded up their homes, as shown here in the Bronx.
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An abandoned car in Union, N.J. at a flooded intersection, on August 28. This area is next to I-78, which also was flooded that day.
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A big-box store resembled an island in the middle of a pond in this August 28 shot of a flooded parking lot in Union, N.J.
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The GOES-13 satellite captured this stunning visible image of Hurricane Irene (later downgraded to a tropical storm) at 8:32 a.m. EDT, just 28 minutes before Irene's landfall in New York City on August 28, 2011....[More]
Manhattan as seen from Staten Island around 10 am Eastern on August 28, as Irene receded from New York City.
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A tree downed in Staten Island, New York City, was photographed between 10 am and 11 am Eastern on August 28, as Irene receded from New York City.
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The damage from Irene in Queens, New York City, included downed trees, blown-over walls and busted-up cars.
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Men worked on Sunday, August 28, to clean up the damage in Manhattan, post-Irene.
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A downed tree on Roosevelt Island, New York City, on Sunday, August 28.
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A dog made its own way through a flooded walkway in New York City on August 28.
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5 Comments
Add CommentI've said this for years. Home's in America need to be made of more concrete and steel. Wooden stick frame home blow down and then get rebuilt the same way. Time after time. Here in China we have an infrastructure that is built of just that. Concrete and steel. We are due to get hit with typhoon Nanmadol tonight. Everyone will stay home to be safe and emerge in the morning. Every year we have typhoons in this part of the world and damage to the infrastructure is minimal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo answer Chinatopcat, the main problem is not what material is used in construction but how they are constructed. Buildings based on squares will not be as strong as buildings based on triangles. Also buildings are constructed as cheaply as possible and still fit the local building codes. Where I live (NJ) the chance of getting a hurricane is not great, so making every building hurricane proof is not cost effective. Same goes for earthquakes since we rarely get one here (I've felt two in my lifetime and I'm 60).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActual damage during this and similar storms stems from poor planning: constructing buildings in natural flood plains, wide, non-absorbing parking lots with no way to handle the runoff by drainage and/or local waterways, and insufficient space for tree roots. Trees go down and take power lines with them. Unfortunately, many cities on the east coast are over one hundred years old, built when these problems didn't exist or weren't expected since these storms are rare compared to other parts of the world. The money needed to rebuild the infrastructure now would be astronomical.
New York City is unique because it has many low lying areas so a combination of hurricane, the moon being in the right position and a good southerly wind can make the water rise enough to flood the subways. It hasn't happened since the right combination of factors hasn't occurred...yet. The rivers that flow through New York City don't flood much since they are trickles compared to what they were when the Ice Age was winding down so nobody worries about it.
All-in-all, I think the East Coast did pretty well during this storm. The main problem as an individual homeowner is our dependence on electricity since without it, refrigerators, sump pumps and some heating systems are not functional. That's why I have a generator. We keep the trees pruned and checked. Also, I'm not in a flood zone which is why my wife and I chose this house over others. Unfortunately, not everybody was as lucky.
Give me a break. Photo compositor must be from NYNY. Who cares. That city is a pit ranking up there with Las Vegas. I was hoping Irene would do everybody a favor and would wash it away <;^)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeriously . . . where are the photos of the other 99% of the impacted East Coast. Get real.
"where are the photos of the other 99% of the impacted East Coast"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike the one above the text that says: "...Louisburg, N.C."?
Oh my goodness! It rained on me, it rained on me! I'm a victim! It's never happened before. It must be Bush"s fault.
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