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Tropical Storm Irene Lashing Northeast; New York City Drying Out From Irene; Flooding Along Coasts, Inland; Flooding, Power Outages Across New Jersey; Irene Drenches Northeast
Aired August 28, 2011 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALEXANDRA STEELE, AMS METEOROLOGIST: You're right. It's inland flooding, believe it or not. So let me show you some of these iReports and talk about the power of water. Look at this. Rich sent this in. Now, this is from Millburn, New Jersey. It's 9 miles west of Newark, New Jersey. Give you a perspective -- 6 inches of water -- that is this, that is it -- can drown a person. So look at the power of this moving this park bench.
All right, another picture I want to show you also from New Jersey -- or this water can submerge a car, no question about that. And look at this police car. This is how high the water is. This is a motorcycle, to give you a little perspective. This is Hillside, New Jersey, west of Newark.
Now, the probably is, in this flood waters, what there could be, power lines. And it's kind of ironic, guys, because look at this police car. In Newark alone, there were six police rescues getting people out of their cars that were stuck in stranded roads because of this water.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: That's incredible. I mean, the force of the water, you know, really can't be underestimated. It's amazing how it could probably move that -- like that picture demonstrated, moving that park bench --
(CROSSTALK)
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: That's why they call it flash flooding.
WHITFIELD: It's pretty significant.
STEELE: Right. This alone, this, just 6 inches, can drown a person.
BALDWIN: Amazing.
WHITFIELD: All right.
BALDWIN: Alexandra Steele, thank you very much. We'll check back in with you, more of these images coming in.
But for now, welcome back. WHITFIELD: That's right. Top of the hour, and right now, we want to bring you up to date on this now Tropical Storm Irene. Hello again, everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.
BALDWIN: And hi, there. I'm Brooke Baldwin. And right now, the storm is churning over New England and upstate New York, pounding these areas with heavy rains and punishing winds. Irene slammed ashore earlier today -- twice, in fact -- at the time still at hurricane strength. It hit Little Egg inlet -- that is in New Jersey -- and then weakening to a tropical storm, it mad landfall at Coney Island, New York. New York City more or less spared from any major damage.
WHITFIELD: But Irene's grim march up the East Coast was accompanied by death, flooding and damaged homes. At least 15 people now are dead across six states, and more than 4 million people without power.
BALDWIN: We have all our CNN crews all along the East Coast, of course, out and about to bring you the up-to-date details on Tropical Storm Irene.
WHITFIELD: All right, a few hours ago, the storm pushed the rivers on either side of Manhattan, you know, over the banks there and right into the streets, but not as significantly as first feared.
BALDWIN: Whew!
WHITFIELD: Our Soledad O'Brien joins us now from Battery Park, along the Hudson River. So it looks relatively dry there, but still very windy.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. The wind has picked up a lot, actually, but it is dry. And when Mayor Bloomberg said the city dodged a bullet, I think there are plenty of people who are walking out here at the tip of Manhattan in Battery Park who would agree with him. We definitely dodged a bullet.
Some other places, as you've been talking about, really haven't been quite so lucky. Governor Chris Christie earlier in Connecticut (SIC) was talking about two people who were killed in this storm, and we're getting some reports that the FDNY, officially, rescued 61 people from Staten Island, including three babies, evacuating 21 homes. People were in neck-high water there. So that's some of the latest rescue information that's come across.
But you're right, in New York City, definitely dodging a bullet. A couple of things I can tell you about here. Bridges are now open. The tunnels are now open. The Staten Island ferry is coming back at 3:00 o'clock this afternoon. We've seen some ferry runs, people going sort of back to their docks.
We're expecting that the MTA -- mass transit, the subways -- will start running sometime tomorrow afternoon. And we are also being told that the evacuation order for some of the residences that are right where I am, right around here -- this was evacuation zone A, meaning you got to go -- that they're going to lift that evacuation order at 3:00 o'clock this afternoon. So that's all good news.
The issue, of course, in that list there is the subway because, really, that's how New Yorkers get around, and also the issue for people doing some of the clean-up from, we've heard, up to 3 feet of water that's poured into some of these buildings that run parallel to the West Side Highway, really running parallel to the Hudson River, which, as we showed you earlier, around 8:00 o'clock this morning, overtopped its banks and poured into some of these apartments.
But all things considered, when people thought how bad it could potentially get, that is not much of a clean-up from what people here in New York City were expecting. Even these high winds are nothing compared to what we thought we would be dealing with -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: Well, that's good news. That's good news. Now, how about a lot of the people behind you? I know folks have been, you know, milling about. What are many of them telling you about their experience was over the last 24 to 48 hours?
O'BRIEN: Well, you know, look at this. That's the Statue of Liberty over my shoulder, right? So this is tourist central. So you what you have down here the mix of locals who live in lower Manhattan, who've come out to kind of survey the damage, kids on their scooters, who are coming out because they've been locked in their house for 24 hours and their parents need them out. And you also have the tourists who've come out, as well, because this is their vacation.
So I think people are feeling relief, just as the mayor said -- we dodged a bullet and everybody knows that -- and also just trying to get a sense of how much damage there's been in the city. And when we did our drive from lower Manhattan right now here to the southern tip, not so bad. You know, things that you would expect to get knocked over in high winds knocked over -- for the island of Manhattan. The flooding that we saw receded actually quite quickly. So I think people are -- "relieved" would be the word that I would use.
BALDWIN: OK, Soledad, thank you very much. I know, though, she mentioned, you know, a lot of the buildings still flooded. She was at the meat-packing district, talking to the super, Carlos, saying, you know, there was water inside the building. So that's a concern. Talking to Mayor Cuomo (SIC), he said still, the Catskills area, because of the saturated water (SIC), the flooding is still an issue, and also Suffolk and Nassau Counties. So this story isn't done by the end of the today.
WHITFIELD: Right.
BALDWIN: We're still many more days to go.
WHITFIELD: And as it pertains to New York, we heard from Mayor Bloomberg, who said earlier, while people are expected to get back to work as best they can, he does expect that nothing will be back to normal, especially since you heard from Soledad MTA may not resume service until mid-afternoon.
BALDWIN: Yes. WHITFIELD: And of course, that's how a lot of people get from point A to point B, but --
BALDWIN: Hopefully --
WHITFIELD: -- at least city offices, services will be open, but --
BALDWIN: Maybe people will get free passes if they're late to work tomorrow morning.
WHITFIELD: Maybe. Well, that'd be nice, wouldn't it.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Maybe. Bosses, if you're listening?
OK, so as we're talking about New York, we also want to talk about Rhode Island, and we have Kate Bolduan standing by in Providence, where the story still appears to be the wind.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It definitely does still seem to be the wind, Brooke. We've been -- as we've seen all across the coast, there are moments of what is -- there's relative calm, and then, you know, I almost just got blown over one additional time just a few moments ago!
But it does still seem to be the wind. We have been getting a little bit more rain, but absolutely nothing that people feared would be heading our way. I will tell you, though, as you've been talking about, the concern throughout this state was the wind damage and all the problems that they have been experiencing because of these fierce tropical storm winds that have been blowing through since early this morning.
Just about 10 minutes from here, in the town of Warwick, we spoke with emergency management over there, and they've actually just restricted travel throughout that city to only emergency vehicles because of the problems that they're experiencing with so many trees blocking roads, as well as power lines that are down, that can be very dangerous, as we well know.
So they actually have restricted travel throughout that city to only emergency vehicles, and definitely, they couldn't tell us exactly when they thought that restriction would be lifted. And they simply said that the power crews need to get out there and they need the time to clean it up and make it more safe for people to be able to travel before they can do that.
So we are dealing with a little bit of -- while we're still expecting some strong winds continuing throughout the day, already hearing from emergency management some discussion about how they're going to be able to clean up quickly and get things back to -- you know, get things back to normal as they can. As you probably know, the Providence airport, an important airport around here, is in Warwick, so you can be sure that people are very much looking forward to travel in that city, getting back to normal really quickly -- Brooke, Fredricka.
BALDWIN: Absolutely. Kate Bolduan, thank you. Yes, we were talking to the Rhode Island governor, Lincoln Chafee, a moment ago, and his smile was rather large. So I think they are definitely now breathing that sigh of relief, at least the state of Rhode Island missing the brunt of the storm, for the most part.
WHITFIELD: That's right, very relieved. Well, not far from Providence, Newport. Rhode Island is a small state, after all, and that's where we find our Gary Tuchman. We heard from the governor, who talked about a lot of the boaters are very relieved that their vessels seem to have survived this storm.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka and Brooke, this is my boat collection --
(LAUGHTER)
TUCHMAN: (INAUDIBLE) always wanted to show you. I've talked to you guys about it. It's really wonderful. And I can smile because the boat collection, which really isn't mine, is still intact and everything is good. A lot of people overnight were on these boats. They didn't want to leave the boats. They wanted to make sure they were safe. Maybe not a wise move if the storm was more serious, but fortunately, it wasn't as serious as we anticipated.
Still very windy here on the Newport marina in Newport, Rhode Island -- Newport one of the great cities of America. Only 25,000 people live here year-round, but on a summer weekend like this one, there's more than 100,000 people here, including many of these boaters, who are now anxious to leave the port and go back to their homes, wherever they live, whether it's Connecticut or New Jersey or New York. Well, many of them are staying put because, as you just heard Kate telling us, the winds are still strong.
The rains have for the most part stopped. The hardest rains were between 3:00 and 7:00 this morning, but the winds have picked up over the last couple of hours. But the worst is over.
I was just talking to the governor myself in person, and you're right, he has that big smile. He's very relieved. There's a lot of pressure, obviously, when you run a state, particularly a state that hasn't had a hurricane for 20 years. The last time was when Hurricane Bob came a-calling. That was in 1991.
There was significant flooding here in Newport, which is a very vulnerable city because the beaches face to the south. That's the southern direction. That's where the beaches face. And this hurricane at the time Irene was coming up (INAUDIBLE) and there was a lot of concern that this place would be under water and there'd be a whole lot of damage. And the worst thought among the politicians, the people lived here, that there could be fatalities and injuries.
So far, there's no fatalities. There are no serious injuries. There are 150,000 customers in this small state without any power, including us here in Newport. But right now, at this point, they consider themselves very lucky. And so do the people who are captaining my boats.
(LAUGHTER)
WHITFIELD: Yes, they're very lucky, too. So Gary, you know, you were talking yesterday to the captain of one of the boats there, who said he and his son were going to sleep in that boat last night. He had no worries. Have you since reached out to him?
TUCHMAN: Yes, well, you know, we've talked to him, and he's still here in the harbor here and --
WHITFIELD: Oh, wow.
TUCHMAN: Yes, and he says -- as a matter of fact, you can see, that's his son. Hey, Bob, do you want to pan over there? There he is!
WHITFIELD: Oh, my goodness!
TUCHMAN: That's Finn (ph). How are you doing, Finn? Give a wave. Yes, that's Finn. That was good timing, actually. We didn't ask for him to be sitting there, but that's the son who's sitting there. And they're waiting -- we're waiting for Finn and his father, Dan -- they live in Connecticut and they're hoping to get that --
BALDWIN: How about that!
TUCHMAN: -- beautiful 50-foot sport fishing boat back to Connecticut shortly after the winds subside. But they did OK.
WHITFIELD: Well, Finn looks pretty mellow, so it must have been a good night --
(CROSSTALK)
WHITFIELD: All right, Gary, thanks so much.
BALDWIN: So people in Rhode Island may be smiling a tad, but not yet if you're in Massachusetts. Irene is approaching Boston. It is raining there already. Look at these images here. They're getting huge waves all along the coast. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has suspended Boston-area transit service. But despite all the potential for danger there, in this state, some people -- they're out and they're enjoying it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's windy and exciting, and everyone likes a good hurricane. You know, it's more than Earl but less than Bob. And a lot of oxygen (ph). I think it must be doing good stuff for me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is so much fun, though! I mean, as long as we keep out of harm's way, it's great.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell me why it's so much fun. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because of the wind and all the big waves and -- it's just, like, you don't get a chance to experience this. And as long as you keep safe experiencing it, it's awesome.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Maybe so much fun for them. Maybe not so much if you ask --
WHITFIELD: I think if you live in Massachusetts, you love the sea and everything that comes with it.
BALDWIN: I guess so, but maybe talk to people in parts of New York and Virginia, North Carolina, they may say, yes, I don't think it was so fun.
Chad Myers, you've been out and about in a hurricane. It is so fun?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It gets scary after a while when things start flying around. And they are seeing still wind gusts to 81 miles per hour there. That's because there's no friction out here in the ocean. When the wind is spinning around land, with mountains and hills and trees, the winds slows down a little bit. But there's nothing to slow that wind down coming off the ocean. So 81 there, not that far from Blue Hill Observatory just in the past hour.
What's going on right now, though -- significant flash flooding from this. Boston, you're out of the rain. So New York, you're out of the rain. But not upstate and not Vermont, New Hampshire, in the rain for sure.
Here's some of the strongest language I may have ever seen in a flash flood warning. "Torrential rains resulted in intense rises in area rivers, especially on the east slopes Berkshires. River gauge values indicate the possibility of record flooding at multiple locations. Seek higher ground immediately if you live near a small stream."
Now, that is for this entire big red zone, the flash flood warnings all the way from Maine, not really along the coast, where it didn't rain very much, but right here through the Berkshires, right through the Catskills, the Adirondacks, and down into the Poconos.
It was a very wet night and it is still raining in most spots here, from Rutland back to Schenectady. The National Guard was called out here a little bit ago to get some people off the top of their roofs in Fleischmanns, New York, not that far from Schenectady, with the flooding going on.
It is raining so hard, and there's been a foot of rain this August already and another foot of rain from this storm, that it has to run off. It has nowhere to go. It is just -- it is going to be a life-threatening event for everyone from parts of Maine all the way back to Pennsylvania.
You can have a good time with it in New York City, but they are not having a good time up here, where it's raining so hard still.
BALDWIN: Chad, let me jump in because I think that's an important point to make again. So the issue, as you were mentioning, on the upper part of the East Coast, as we've been talking about in Pennsylvania and also in New Jersey, is they've seen so much rainfall that the ground is so saturated that the water coming down now from this tropical storm, what, has nowhere else to go. And so that -- that's the problem.
MYERS: That is. In fact, New York City before the storm had 13 inches of rain in August. Philadelphia, same story. If you get all the way up to Albany, almost 16 inches around the area. So the ground is completely wet. It just -- it can't hold anything, and it can't hold the tree limbs and the roots.
WHITFIELD: So where does it go?
MYERS: The trees are falling over. It goes right into the creeks and streams. The water goes up rapidly, and people get washed away if you're in the wrong place.
WHITFIELD: Yes, that flash flooding. That's exactly how it brews. All right, thanks so much, Chad Meyers. Appreciate that.
Meantime, we're talking about all the water, particularly around the Philadelphia area. It has been saturated, and you got two rivers that run right around Philadelphia, causing yet a bigger problem. We're going to talk the mayor of Philadelphia and find out what the new normal looks like these days.
BALDWIN: Also, more amazing images of Irene's fury from you, our iReporters. This video from Mike Sharp (ph). Mike shot this as -- you can see the heavy wind and rain from Irene, at the time still at hurricane strength, slammed into -- this is Greenville, North Carolina, yesterday. Keep sending us iReports, iReport.com.
Our breaking news coverage of Tropical Storm Irene back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: All right, welcome back here. Take a look at these images. We are getting these pictures from you. You are helping us tell the story of Hurricane, now Tropical Storm, Irene. A lot of you in the thick of it. This is iReporter George Nikolis took these videos here of the Hudson River overflowing in its banks. This is New Jersey. There was a mandatory evacuation order in this particular area, but Nikolis says he lives in one of those high-rise building, so he didn't feel his safety was in too much jeopardy.
WHITFIELD: All right, let's move further south there from Jersey City and on to Philadelphia, where Mayor Michael Nutter is on the phone with us right now.
OK, big concern for you, Mayor, before Irene hit the rivers, your state was already very much saturated from previous rain. So how do you feel this morning about what took place?
MAYOR MICHAEL NUTTER (D), PHILADELPHIA (via telephone): Well, this has just been an incredible storm, Fredricka. I'm actually up in the East Falls section of Philadelphia and looking at the Schuylkill River, which is just about cresting, maybe at 14, 15 feet. It is almost up to where a traffic light is. That's how high the river is. I just took a photo of it.
We're concerned about flooding in a variety of areas across Philadelphia. Many of our creeks and rivers and streams already at flood stage, and we may see some receding this afternoon. So that's an issue.
Power outages, of course, in Philadelphia, about 10,000 right now, but it was at 21,000 earlier today. So our energy company, PECO (ph), is doing a great, great job here in Philadelphia, but there are many outages across the region.
Part of the problem is that the rain has gone away, for the most part, but significant winds that whip around and take down trees -- I heard on your earlier broadcast trees are falling down as if they have no roots primarily because we've had so much rain and then combined with the wind.
So tough situation. We're going to move through it. Our teams are out, and as the rivers recede, we'll be able to come in and provide additional resource. But it is a fascinating sight right now.
WHITFIELD: Well, remarkable. You talk about the cresting at 15 feet. It also has to worry you, too, that we're looking at images of people who get out, they feel comfortable with the water, they have fun with it, but the potential of flash flooding is still very great. How do you get the word out to people about maintaining --
NUTTER: Well, we --
WHITFIELD: -- composure and safety?
NUTTER: We've been constantly telling people to be smart, don't make bad decisions -- could call it something else, but just don't make bad decisions. Don't -- you know, I know on TV, the cars and SUVs go through a lot of water. That's only on television. You should not try that out on the streets. And so basically, stay away from it. If you want to look, that's one thing. But don't get in it. This is not a game. This is not something to play with. That water will rapidly take you away and a tragedy could happen.
So it's a constant refrain when I'm getting information, when I'm on television, talking to any of the news media, to remind folks that it is an incredible event, but it also can lead to tragedy. So just be careful.
BALDWIN: Mayor Nutter, it's Brook Baldwin sitting alongside Fred. And I know that this is the worst storm to hit Philadelphia in some five decades. Is the curfew still in effect for your city? And also, what's the message to people as they do try to get out and get to work tomorrow?
NUTTER: I'm sorry, Fredricka, can you give me that one more time?
BALDWIN: I hear the sirens. Mayor Nutter, it's Brooke Baldwin. My question, if you can hear me, is, are the curfews still in effect for your city? And what's your message to people who will be needing to get out first thing tomorrow morning to get to work?
NUTTER: Well, we're going to get the city back into shape. The mass transit system has gotten up and running. Philly international airport will be open at 4:00 o'clock. Trash service, recycling will all be in effect. So I mean, we think that we'll have the city pretty much back in shape.
But I mean, again, with the rivers and streams, the flooding, the power outages, those will take some time. And we're asking folks to be patient, be understanding. Philadelphians have been tremendous in this effort and it's one of reasons why we haven't had any real tragedies in this. But we don't want folks to get deceived by what is seemingly calm. There's still many, many danger points in this, and we're going to keep getting that information out there.
BALDWIN: Mr. Mayor, one more question. I had read that you had seen sofas, I don't know, refrigerators floating along in this river. Is that still the case?
NUTTER: Oh, man! Couches, refrigerators, all kinds of stuff. I mean, it is -- it's a rapidly moving river, but it's also very, very powerful and it comes with a lot of force. So it's -- there's a lot -- I mean, we have trees that -- full trees that have come down the river. We're very, very concerned about their movement. And you know, they may get lodged between pillars and cause all kinds of other problems.
So we're going to stay on top of this. We know where our pressure points are. And fortunately for us, we have a great team with a great plan, working with the state, working with the federal government. But it's a lot of work.
WHITFIELD: All right, Mayor Michael Nutter, thanks so much, of Philadelphia. Of course --
NUTTER: Thank you, Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: -- when that water recedes, the mayor and others will get a chance to better assess the kind of damage that --
BALDWIN: And then the clean-up, though.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: They're going to have their hands full.
WHITFIELD: Yes. BALDWIN: Just head, some of the videos and pictures you have been sending us from Hurricane Irene, the best of the best from our iReporters.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Welcome back to our continuing coverage of Tropical Storm now Irene. I'm Fredricka Whitfield, along with my colleague, Brooke Baldwin.
So tens of thousands of people were ordered to evacuate the lowest-lying areas of New York City, but some of them, of course --
(CROSSTALK)
WHITFIELD: Nope. Our affiliate, WABC, spoke with a man whose father actually stayed put.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tell me why your father would not get out of the house.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, he never got out before and he refused to get out now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When did the flood waters start coming in?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: About 5:00 o'clock this morning.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you were inside with him. What happened?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The water started to come in through the front door, the back door. Time to go.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what did he say to you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He ain't leaving.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He says, I'm not leaving. So he's upstairs. He's OK. I go check on him once in a while. He's all right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got your hip waders on so you're able to get him any food or water that he needs?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I picked up some stuff this morning. And he's got everything he needs upstairs.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How old is your father?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ninety-three.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ninety-three. He's not changing his ways, is he.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. Never.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you ever seen it this bad?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is, like, the second time, but this is actually a little higher than it was the last time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The last time was that big flood, where everybody got bombed. But this was a lot higher. It's actually going down now because you couldn't see the roof of that car before or nothing like that so --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: All right, looks like son has accepted (ph). Dad's a little stubborn, but apparently, he seems like he's all right.
BALDWIN: A 93-year-old dad says, Well, I made it this long --
WHITFIELD: He's still calling the shots.
BALDWIN: -- I think I'm going to go for it.
WHITFIELD: That's right.
All right, well, some of the best pictures and stories that we've been receiving are from CNN iReporters. Alexandra Steele has been watching all these iReports come in. You've been sifting through them. What do you like? What do you see?
STEELE: All right, well, last time I talked to you, we had biggest killer (ph) hurricane, we know, inland flooding, right? We've talked a lot about flooding, and I just kind of quickly want to give you the quick 411 on flooding.
Chad's talking a lot about flash flooding and river flooding. They're different. Flash flooding, which we're seeing in Vermont and Massachusetts because of all the rain from Irene -- it happens quickly, short amount of time, a lot of rain, ends quickly.
River flooding, which we have warnings, as well, on the Delaware and the Schuylkill and all of that -- river flooding takes longer to develop and a lot longer for those rivers to recede. So no test, but that's the kind of Cliff Note version.
All right, so let's to it. We have seen flooding in Long Island, of course. And let me take you -- we're talking about those who were mandatory evacuations and those who didn't leave. Take a look at this. This is video from a back yard in Oceanside New York. Now, this is Long Island, Nassau County, south side of Long Island and it's also south of the Sunrise Highway. Mandatory evacuations were in place here. Obviously, this person did not go. Twenty shelters open in this area. It is a coastal floodplain. And look at all the water. Beth Segal, thanks for taking the time to send it, but certainly is very scary. This is her back yard in Oceanside, and that white is a big fence kind of connecting her to the neighbor. And that side looks intact, but you can see farther left, it's all broken up.
And the note she sent, too, is saying that, Look what happened to my fence. You can see those pieces. Kind of looks like a low garage, but it's a fence. So remember now, 6 inches of flowing water, drown a person, 2 feet of flowing water can float a car. So we're talking about some incredible power here, and obviously, mandatory evacuations -- and some didn't do that.
BALDWIN: Yes, no, and I know a lot of people in lower Manhattan -- Alexandra, thank you. You know, lower Manhattan, you go out to Battery Park, it should be a beautiful Sunday, you want to see the Statue of Liberty. Not yet this morning. You shouldn't be out there. But a lot of tourists, you know, they're already heading back out.
I know Soledad O'Brien has been there off and on all morning long, and she's going to have a look for us at really the clean-up effort there. As you can see trees are down. That's an issue with power lines. We've got a full report from this part of New York when our special coverage returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Welcome back. Tropical Storm Irene lashing New England right now. I'm Brooke Baldwin.
WHITFIELD: I'm Fredericka Whitfield at the CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta. So the storm has weakened quite a bit since it hit New Jersey this morning.
But it is still quite powerful as it barrels across upstate New York, Vermont and New Hampshire as it also approaches parts of Boston, Massachusetts.
At least 15 people in six states have been killed since Irene first made landfall 30 hours ago, some from falling trees, others from flooding.
BALDWIN: The worst is over if you are in New York City. The evacuation order as we learned from Mayor Michael Bloomberg within the last hour will expire in half an hour. Also the Staten Island ferry service will resume shortly.
But let's talk about the winds because the winds have been fierce as you see some of these pictures. It obviously toppled a number of trees and snapping power lines and some are also crushing cars.
Right now more than 4 million people are without power because of this and it could be a week potentially before electricity is restored to everyone. WHITFIELD: All right, let's check in with our Soledad O'Brien who's in lower Manhattan. You know, a lot of folks are already out and they're feeling a little confident that the worst has passed by Manhattan. So they are streaming behind you trying to see the Statue of Liberty and maybe just feel the wind that still exists.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we're -- yes, you know, and the wind is actually pretty strong. It's been blowing us around quite a bit. This is a tourist spot because it's a good place to be able to see the Statue of Liberty. But even more than that is this is a spot where they were evacuating people out of.
This used to be historically landfill and it was, you know, filled in, which means that it is low lying and so this is the area they were very worried about flooding and it did flood. Water came well up to where I am and even past and then receded quite quickly.
Earlier this morning we were on the west village side by where the Hudson was coming in and doing sort of the same thing, flooding, overturning the banks and then flooding and receding quite quickly. So the damage has not been miserable, has not been horrible.
What we are seeing damage from some of these people who had to evacuate those buildings and even though those who haven't, three feet of water in their buildings -- a mess to clean up.
But that is not something that's horrible. That's much less than they were expecting. Also these high winds have knocked over trees. You see the newspaper boxes in many cases have fallen over, things like that.
We've gotten a chance to see that as we were driving through the city today. So it's not as bad as many projected it would be. In fact, Mayor Bloomberg earlier today in his press conference said the city dodged a bullet. Here's what else he said?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG (I), NEW YORK: The good news is the worst is over and we will soon move to restore and return mode. The tides we're heading towards low tide. As you know the back side of a low pressure area comes up the east coast where the winds will force the waters away from the coast. So the dangers of flooding additional flooding have been eliminated and the existing flooding should start to go down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Mayor Bloomberg holding that press conference at a command center that was built after 9/11. We've had a chance to tour that command center several times actually. So the mayor also said at the press conference that the bridges and tunnels are open and the Staten Island ferry is running again, all good news.
Things really getting up and running even faster, I think that many people thought they might. The only thing we're waiting on is the subway system, mass transit. We're being told that that may come back towards the end of the day tomorrow. That's a big problem for New Yorkers because that's really how New Yorkers get around.
What I found very interesting about the mayor's press conference as I'm sure you guys both have noticed. He launches into Spanish as well. He is fluent in Spanish, 26 percent of New York City residents are Latinos. And so he often will do his presence conference then do another version in Spanish for his Spanish speaking constituents listening to his press conferences.
That's been interesting to see as he updates us. So that's the word from here, we are feeling very confident as are these folks even thought the police come by every so often and tell people to be cautious, really they're out and kind of gawking at the scene, windy, but really not very much danger at this time.
BALDWIN: Soledad, it's Brooke. Just a quick question, for people who aren't as intimately familiar with Manhattan as you are, I mean, you're not too far from ground zero.
We are very near the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and I know there was an effort, there was sandbagging et cetera to make sure that whole area remains a-OK after this storm. Can you give me a quick assessment on that?
O'BRIEN: Yes, you know, people were very concerned about that because, of course, if you know what those memorials look like in the footprints of where the towers stood, they dug them out and created this sort of underground water falls, absolutely beautiful, amazing to look at but also underground.
There was a big concern that if there was major flooding that would be a disaster for the ground zero area because they are still working many of those buildings. You've got tons of construction gear and everything trying to ramp up for the 9/11 anniversary.
That was I big concern and we got a tweet, actually they sent out a tweet earlier this morning from the 9/11 memorial saying, no damage, that things were fine, when everybody again, another sigh of relief. We've seen many of those tweets.
Many people saying, you know, we're back, no problem. That's great. So 9/11, the ground zero not very far from where we are, we can see one of towers going up in front of me. No damage there. And so it looks like that means that things that were on track for the anniversary of September 11th will not be slowed by this storm.
BALDWIN: Wonderful.
WHITFIELD: All right, good news. Soledad O'Brien, thanks so much. Of course, a lot of construction workers had taken great measures to make sure the cranes that had to remain in place because of these last minute, you know, touches being made for that 9/11 memorial would stay in place, tied them down to be able to withstand up to 100-mile-per-hour winds.
BALDWIN: It sounds like they worked.
WHITFIELD: So far, so good. Our Chad Meyers has a look at what's left of the storm. It is still a storm, it's a tropical storm, but it is also causing big problems for upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and parts of Massachusetts with a lot of wind. We'll in with him momentarily right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: All right, we're continuing our look at Tropical Storm Irene. Yes, it's primary in the northeast, but it's still left in its wake a lot of damage on the east coast much further south, particularly North Carolina where it first made landfall.
BALDWIN: Yes, let's not forget North Carolina saw a lot of the brunt when it initially made landfall, I know yesterday Chad Meyers talked to me about some of the damage there, outer banks.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: We have the storm run right over Atlantic Beach, which is the south part of the angle or the triangle that would be the outer banks. Then it went into the Sound and then eventually back into the ocean.
But that storm surge that we talk about it, if you're on a sand island, where your feet are may not be there when you're done. You have to be careful and I have pictures to prove what this is route 12 and this is Rodanthe, I'm sure you heard the movie.
So here it is. This is what it looks like right now. They are going to have to build a bridge or fill that back in. Let me show you how this happened here. Here's the video. Here's the wide angle from the helicopter.
This is what the road -- this is 12 should go all the way down into and this is the water tower at Rodanthe there was a beautiful house there. I'll show you that in a second. It doesn't exist anymore and I'll show you exactly why it doesn't exist.
Here's the point. There's North Carolina and there's what we're talking about that little part right there. We're going to fly you right in because this was the angle that picture was taken. So we're looking from the north, looking to the south. Here's Rodanthe and there's the house that I was talking about.
Why is that road gone right there? Why that house gone right there? One more turn and we're going to look back into the Sound. When the water got pushed into the sound, the water was back here and then the storm went offshore and water was dragged out of the Sound. It was sucked out of the sound along that little creek.
And that little ditch really more than anything, it was the weak spot and that's where the water went. And when the water came out it began to wash away the island. That house right that was there is no longer there because that island does it exist anymore.
We'll put Google there. This is what it looked like before, beautiful place to be except now that part right there and that home right there doesn't exist anymore. It is in the ocean. We know that because there it is, there's part of the problem as well.
Also had some fires going on in parts of the island as power lines came down and I can't really tell where that was. That was obviously still a close part of the tour that our producer was on the helicopter.
That's what happens, you can get a cut across these islands then you have to build a bridge. What you thought you were standing on when you were covering a hurricane doesn't exist anymore.
WHITFIELD: My goodness. All of that area was under mandatory evacuation. Hopefully the people who owned the properties did indeed leave. Now they are likely looking at those images, this is their first assessment of their properties and how they withstood the storm and saw that at least that one did not withstand the storm.
BALDWIN: Here's my question, Chad Myers, is that more like the anomaly or is that sort of the trend there.
MYERS: That is the anomaly. That is the one cut that was made. This is only a Category 1 hurricane. At a Category 2 or 3 hurricane, there may have been a lot of that island that disappeared and they have to build bridges and when the water wants to rush out, it finds the weakest point and that little ditch was the weakest point.
And that's where the water eroded and kept going until it made its own little river and now there's an extra place to take your boat in and out of the island from the ocean to the bay right there at the island in the ditch or that river I guess, the opening that the hurricane made.
WHITFIELD: The luck of the draw for that one piece of property. All right, Chad Myers, thanks so much. Of course, there are other regions of the northeast that do feel like they dodged the bullet completely.
BALDWIN: Absolutely, but not everyone has been lucky at all. Poppy Harlow, if you saw her a little while ago, she gave us a tour of mayor of Secaucus's basement. She has more stories, one kitchen floor falling out of one of these homes. We'll check in with Poppy coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: All right, more on Tropical Storm now Irene, New Jersey is dealing with flooding, toppled trees, and of course, power outages.
BALDWIN: Yes, and Poppy Harlow, she has been providing us really the first images of some of the damage there. She is Secaucus. Poppy, you showed us the live tour of the mayor's basement sort of underwater. What do you have now?
POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: We have the house right next door to the mayor unfortunately it was sunny when we talked last. It's getting a lot darker and it's gotten significantly windier here. We heard about the winds that might come after the rain. That's what's happening in New Jersey. They got the brunt of the damage from this. Guy, we're going to go into his house. But first just tell me, you rode out the storm here, right?
GUY PASCARELLO, SECAUCUS RESIDENT: Yes, we left about 10:00 this morning. That's when the water rose up and came up through the front door and basically surrounded the house. It turned this into an island.
Around 6:30 this morning, I fell asleep finally, we had power back. It seemed like we were out of the woods. There was no water in the street. It was just raining hard and windy.
I got knocking on the door about 9:00 and this was the fire department. I looked out the window and it was completely up to the door. You know, right about that gold plate.
HARLOW: Yes, let's head in.
PASCARELLO: And then within the hour it went from that level to about 2 inches to about 3 feet.
HARLOW: Also, Fredericka, he woke up to screams really from his wife and his mom. So we're going to go in here and we're going to go into his house. We've just been told by the building inspector here in Secaucus it might be a little dark. Come all the way in.
We're going to get some light on it right now. We're just told by the building inspector that his house is unliveable. The carpet here is completely soaking wet.
And what you're going to see in a minute, the middle of this house essentially caved in. Guy, why don't you take us into the kitchen and show us what's going on?
WHITFIELD: And of course, it's very dark because of power outages throughout many packers throughout New Jersey.
PASCARELLO: It starts to drop. As you make your way in, you can actually see where it cracked along the floor.
HARLOW: So he's saying, Fred, that the floor cracked here. You can see that down here. Come all the way in here with me, I'm going to show you what happened to the ceiling here.
Essentially when you get in the kitchen, when you get in the kitchen -- can you come anymore? Are you able to come in? They are trying Fredericka. But the floor leans to the right and the ceiling is cracked. You heard, Guy, that this is unliveable. What does this mean for you and your wife? Where do you go from here?
PASCARELLO: I don't know. It all depends on how long this is going to take to fix. It's new to us obviously. We've been in this home 40 years, it's a family home. HARLOW: Forty years?
PASCARELLO: Yes, my mom and dad had this thing built. My mom still lives here. We all live together. So I don't know. This is all new ground for us. I honestly don't have answer just yet.
We're lucky. We have great friends who have offered to put us up. We'll see. You know -- I mean, the good news is it's just stuff. This is a home and we love our home but at the same time it's just things.
Everybody is healthy. My mother is 75 and still kicking strong. Everybody is good so health wise it -- we're OK. It's just now we've got to rebuild.
HARLOW: Fredericka, do you have any questions for him here? I mean, this is the second home we've seen with severe damage. I think as we hear people say, you know, the storm wasn't as bad as expected you have to remember people like this.
WHITFIELD: Yes, so, Guy, where were you and where was everybody during the brunt of the storm?
HARLOW: She wants to know where you and your wife and mom were during the brunt of the storm.
PASCARELLO: Upstairs.
HARLOW: Upstairs?
PASCARELLO: My mom was down here. This is her half of the house. We live upstairs. We were upstairs together for a while until 12:00, 12:30, kids were watching movies with my mom and I was working and we were staying busy. We had power. We had internet. We had TV.
HARLOW: This wasn't an evacuation zone, was it?
PASCARELLO: No, it was voluntary.
WHITFIELD: Was they constantly going up and downstairs, kind of checking during the storm?
PASCARELLO: Nothing imminent. The water was draining.
HARLOW: Were you constantly going up and down the stairs checking during the storm to see how bad it got or did you not realize until you were woken up by a knock on your door by the fire department at 9 a.m.?
PASCARELLO: Well, the problem is we don't have a basement. So we don't take water through the ground or we don't take water that has a place to go down. It has to come from the back and front for it to ever happen. And I was constantly at the window checking the street to seal if the sewers were backing up. See if the river was rising. There was nothing. Not at 6:30 this morning, zero and then by 9:00 a.m. -- HARLOW: It all came in.
PASCARELLO: Unreal.
HARLOW: I've heard too, Fredm I was driving around the town with the mayor, the concern here is when high tide comes in again what that might be like. We're 100 feet from the Hacken Sack River, the way you described it, this became like a moat around your house.
PASCARELLO: And they are saying 8:00, we're looking at another high tide.
HARLOW: At 8:00 p.m. tonight?
PASCARELLO: I believe so. That's what I was told. I haven't checked myself, but I've been told it's 8:00 p.m. between that and full moon with the new moon, it just not going to be pretty again.
HARLOW: We're going to hope for the best, Guy. We're going to let you take care of this. Fredricka, we're getting up the car head about half our way to Millburn, New Jersey where we hear there's also some severe flooding. We'll come to you live from there at the top of four.
WHITFIELD: All right, that sounds good. Sounds like Guy and the rest many family should pack a few things up because they won't be staying there tonight. All right, Poppy Harlow, thanks so much and all the best to the Pascarello family.
BALDWIN: Sounds like a good guy. Mom lives in the house, got his priorities intact. It's just material, but I mean, that is really -- that story hits home for so many people.
WHITFIELD: The unpredictability of the storms of this caliber.
All right, straight ahead, a look at Irene's impact overall and how the storm has affected millions more up and down the coast.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: All right, Tropical Storm Irene, well, it is moving over southern New England right now. We're talking about Vermont, upstate New York, even New Hampshire, but it's clearly left a lasting market on states south.
BALDWIN: Absolutely, we're talking New Jersey and New York specifically today. Here is CNN's John Demann.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Irene made landfall again Sunday morning, windy, wet and destructive, but it was slightly more subdued. Quickly downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm as its wind speeds fell below 75 miles per hour.
As it hit New York City, the worst problem was flooding. Storm surges in the east river and Hudson submerged low lying areas of Brooklyn and Manhattan. Water front walkways actually under water.
To the east in Long Beach, the advancing Atlantic swallowed 10 to 15 foot berms built to hold it back, pushing at least one building into the boardwalk.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST (via telephone): Those waves are massive. That surf is absolutely pounding the shoreline and has completely wiped out the manmade berm they put up to protect this hotel and this boardwalk and that town.
MANN: People in low lying areas had been told to evacuate in advance of the storm. Those who chose to stay quickly found themselves in situations like this, trapped by riding waters. Rescue crews used boats in New York on Sunday morning to ferry people to safety. In New Jersey, water even inundated a marina and the governor said flooding was by far the state's biggest concern.
GOVERNOR CHRIS CHRISTIE, NEW JERSEY: We're talking about not only coastline flooding but also inland flooding of our rivers. They are swelling to record levels. So that's going to continue for another couple of days after the storm passes.
MANN: Further south, Ocean City, Maryland reported no major flooding, but still plenty of water, at least 11 inches of rain by early Sunday.
Elsewhere in the state, a woman in Queenstown died Saturday night crushed by the chimney in her home after a tree fell on it. A nuclear power reactor went offline automatically late Saturday after a piece of aluminum siding struck a transformer.
Power was a big problem everywhere the storm spread. More than 3 million utility customers spent some part of the weekend in the dark.
EDDIE HOPLINS, MARYLAND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT (via telephone): We're trying to obviously help people manage our expectations by getting that information to utility companies and helping in any way we can to prioritize critical infrastructure and such to get power restored to those communities. But our expectation is this will take days -- not hours, but days to get that done.
MANN: The storm hit the south even harder when it first struck on Saturday taking lives in North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, the extent of property damage is anyone's guess and it's not over yet. Jonathan Mann, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
