The menace of Hurricane Irene has done what no one or nothing else has been able to do -- shut down the city that never sleeps.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg today announced the first ever mandatory evacuation of low lying waterfront areas of the city. Those areas include parts of the financial district in lower Manhattan as well as sections along the Hudson and East rivers. The zone, which includes 250,000 people, was ordered emptied by 5 p.m. Saturday.
See NYC Hurricane Evacuation Zones Map
The mayor also ordered that its sprawling subway and bus system -- Gotham's lifeline -- be closed from Saturday afternoon until Monday. Shutting down the transit system will paralyze a city where most people don't drive cars. A spokesperson for the MTA said that in recent memory the entire subway system has only been shutdown twice, on Sept. 11, 2001 and during a strike in 2005.
Bloomberg warned New Yorkers to not be fooled because "the sun is shining." He said Irene is a "dangerous storm", and "it's heading basically directly for us."
Irene's winds eased up a bit today, although still a ferocious category 2 storm with 100 mph winds. At its peak, Irene was blasting away with 115 mph winds.
Live Storm Tracker: Hurricane Irene
The hurricane is expected to make landfall Saturday afternoon in the barrier islands of North Carolina and start churning its way north along the coast all the way beyond Boston through the weekend. At least 65 million people live in the path of Irene. Along with powerful winds will come monsoon like rains and heavy inland surges of water.
Weather Underground/AP Photo
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Watch Video Hurricane Irene: North Carolina Clearing Out
Watch Video Like New York, Philadelphia is also stopping all mass transit operations. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter announced that the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority will cease service beginning at 12:30 a.m. Saturday.
Even Atlantic City, N.J., isn't gambling on Irene's strength. Gov. Chris Christie suspended all gaming activity starting on Saturday at noon.
Irene is slowly lumbering towards the East Coast and although its wind velocity has diminished slightly, the National Hurricane Center said that it did not expect any other changes to Irene's strength.
"I don't see it falling apart. There's nothing in the atmosphere that would kill it altogether," said Bill Read of the National Hurricane Center. "I would prepare for the worst and hope for the best."
President Obama urged people to heed evacuation orders.
"I cannot stress this highly enough, if you are in the projected path of this hurricane you have to take precautions now. Don't wait, don't delay," said Obama. "All indications point to this being a historic hurricane."
Hurricane watches have been extended from North Carolina to New York City and even Boston. States of emergency have been declared in North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York.
"The magnitude of the potential impact from this is sometimes hard to get your hands on," Read said.
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Read said the Northeast corridor could expect up to 10 inches of rain, but since the area's ground is already saturated from heavy rains earlier this week, the ground will not be able to soak up the downpour, causing flash floods. The soggy ground will also make it more likely for trees to come down in high winds, possibly taking out power lines at the same time.
North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue urged the 3.5 million residents in coastal North Carolina to get out of Irene's path. She said that Ocracoke Island in the Outer Banks is now clear of people and the ferry will be shut down. Railroads in eastern North Carolina will be shut down Saturday.
"This hurricane is real. It is headed our way," Perdue said at a press conference this morning. "I urge every citizen along the coastal plains to evacuate. It is so much better to be safe than to be sorry. We can rebuild houses...but families?cannot be replaced."
In Maryland, Gov. Martin O'Malley called Irene a "monster killer storm."
He warned people to expect major power outages that could last for 72 hours.
"This is the real deal, this is a big, deadly and dangerous storm," O'Malley said.
The director of Maryland's Emergency Management Agency, Richard Muth, said Irene "could certainly be a catastrophic event."
"I've been doing this a lot of years and I can't remember ?a time when a storm has hit Maryland and still been a Category 1 hurricane."
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