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Washingto/New York: As the US East Coast struggled
to recover from the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, rising
floodwaters forced thousands of evacuations in New Jersey and
Connecticut with 13 flooded Vermont towns already cut off.
Irene will most likely prove to be one of the 10 costliest
catastrophes in American history, the New York Times said, citing
industry estimates putting the cost of the storm at $7 billion to
$10 billion, largely because the hurricane pummelled an unusually
wide area of the East Coast.
The death toll stemming from Irene continued to rise Tuesday. At
least 43 deaths were linked to the storm, from Florida to North
Carolina to New England, CNN reported.
An estimated 2.85 million customers remained without power Tuesday
afternoon, the US Department of Energy said. That included more
than half a million each in Connecticut and New York, more than
400,000 in Virginia, more than 300,000 in New Jersey and more than
250,000 in Maryland.
Nearly 6.7 million customers initially were left without power by
the storm, the department said.
"This storm covered a tremendous amount of territory," Homeland
Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told reporters in Virginia.
She said most states are now in recovery, though a few states-like
Vermont and New Jersey-are still in response mode.
In New York City, which was largely spared by the storm, the
authorities had cleared three-quarters of the nearly 2,000 trees
knocked down by the storm. About 8,000 customers remained without
power, mostly in Queens, home to largest concentration of
Indian-Americans in the US.
Transportation also remained limited, with large swaths of train
tracks submerged. Amtrak said it was hoping to restore most
service between Washington and New York Wednesday.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)
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