Hurricane Irene – A Force To Be Reckoned With
In the last days of August, 2011, a hurricane named Irene battered the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, leaving extensive wind and flood damage in its wake.
Although most people think of the U.S. Eastern Seaboard as consisting of the New England coast, the fact is that technically it encompasses the entire Atlantic coast from Maine all the way down to the northern part of Florida.
Irene, the first major hurricane of the 2011 season, got its start as a well defined Atlantic tropical wave that soon picked up steam, forming a closed cyclonic circulation center along with atmospheric convection. These features prompted the NHC, or National Hurricane Center, in Florida to issue public warnings about the storm’s activity on August 20th.
On August 22nd, Irene made landfall at significant hurricane strength near Puerto Rico, causing a great deal of property damage. From there, the hurricane quickly gathered strength and progressed from a Category 1 hurricane to a Category 3 by the time it passed through the Bahamas. At this point, it curved toward the north and skirted the coast of Florida with tropical force winds generated by its outer bands.
In the morning hours of August 27th, Irene made landfall on the Outer Banks of Eastern
North Carolina and proceeded on its path of destruction along the Southeastern part of Virginia. It emerged again out over the ocean, then made landfall in New Jersey on the Little Egg Inlet in the early morning of August 28th. Irene was the first hurricane since 1903 to make landfall in New Jersey.
Although the hurricane was downgraded to a tropical storm before it made landfall again
on Coney Island in New York that same morning, it brought extensive damage to upstate New York and Vermont, as well as the worst flooding in hundreds of years to the region.
Due to Irene’s projected path, over 65 million people in the United States were at possible risk. Hundreds of thousands of people up and down the East Coast evacuated while state officials, along with utilities workers, transportation facilities, ports, industries, oil refineries, and nuclear power plants made preparations to activate emergency plans.
Residents who didn’t choose evacuation made sure to stock up on food and provisions and to make homes, boats and vehicles as secure as possible in anticipation of the hurricane’s arrival.
In Washington D.C. thousands of sandbags were strategically placed at the flood prone entrances of Washington Metro stations. The states in the projected path of Irene declared a state of emergency, as did numerous towns and cities. Some areas made evacuation mandatory.
Due to an unusually rainy summer—the wettest ever recorded—the ground in places such as eastern Pennsylvania was already saturated, which served to make bad matters worse. With meteorologists predicting as much as 16 inches of rain in some parts of New Jersey, river floodgates were opened in an attempt to reduce flooding.
On August 26th, mandatory evacuation was ordered for everyone in the low lying areas of New York City. New York mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the city was creating an “enormous shelter system” for residents who had no access to higher and safer ground. President Obama issued a state of emergency for the entire New York metropolitan area and made federal disaster funds available. He also called upon FEMA, or Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security to begin coordination of disaster relief efforts.
As Hurricane Irene made its way up the Eastern coast, 15 states were affected. Approximately 7.4 million homes and businesses lost electricity and about 3.3 million of those were still without power on August 30th. Coastal areas bore the brunt of Irene’s fury and were battered with flood damage. The hurricane also spawned tornadoes that resulted in significant property damage.
There was record flooding of many rivers and affected areas, the worst in hundreds of years according to the National Weather Service. The financial damage in the United States from Hurricane Irene has been estimated to be as much as $7 billion.
The death toll is believed to be at least 45 with some people still unaccounted for.
Recovery efforts from Hurricane Irene in the U.S. were underway immediately as thousands of workers, both officials and volunteers, pitched in to do what needed to be done to bring conditions back to normal. On August 31st, FEMA’s administrator Craig Fugate told CBS’s The Early Show that recovery efforts would not be slowed by a drawdown in assistance funds.
This is good news indeed for the thousands of people whose lives have been impacted by Hurricane Irene.