Hurricane Irene started battering New York early Sunday with winds of over 58 mph at the JFK Airport endangering about 80,000 homes with combined worth of around $35 billion in the area with storm surge.
The storm will be bringing in around 15 inches of rainfall coinciding with high tides across the region. In Sandy Hook, NJ a 3.9 feet of storm surge was reported while a 3.8 feet of water came in thru New York Harbor.
The first landfall of the hurricane was experience by folsk near Cape Lookout in North Carolina last Saturday before heading towards the Jersey Shore.
Hurricane Irene has weakened and is now categorized as a Category 1 hurricane with winds of around 75 miles per hours. This is according to the bulletin of the National Hurricane Center at around 5 am Sunday.
A tornado watch is still up for Queens and Brooklyn in New York as of this writing. The New York authorities have also warned of possible flooding in NYC and storm surge affecting the areas around the Hudson River.
The storm moves slowly and is expected to pass thru New York City come Sunday afternoon continuing its track to New England. The hurricane battered Ocean City in Maryland early Sunday.
Eight people were reported dead because of Hurricane Irene with around 3 million homes and business in the East Coast without electricity.
Hurricane Irene is the first hurricane to directly threaten the US in around three years. The hurricane has also caused damages in the Bahamas and Dominican Republic. It comes almost six years after Hurricane Katrina that killed around 1,800 people and forcing about a million out of their homes.
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