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Coverage of Hurricane Irene

Aired August 28, 2011 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FREDERICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, again, everyone. I'm Fredericka Whitfield.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Here we go, our free (ph), you and me here at the world headquarters in Atlanta covering the breaking storm that is Tropical Storm Irene.

Here's the latest. Let's talk about New York City first. After lashing Manhattan, Irene is barreling through New England now where it is dumping heavy, heavy rain. The storm made landfall twice overnight, both cases -- actually the first case is a hurricane in New Jersey and then as a tropical storm at Coney Island in New York.

WHITFIELD: And on Long Island Irene's storm surge flooded downtown Long Beach. Some streets in Manhattan also flooding, but the water has started to recede in Manhattan, and New York's evacuation order actually is being lifted this hour.

In its sweep up the east coast, Irene has killed at least 15 people across six states. More than 4 million people overall without power. And these amazing pictures show some of the damage when Irene first made landfall along the North Carolina coast as a hurricane.

BALDWIN: So for place like New York City, the storm wasn't as bad as many had feared but as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said earlier today, it's not over yet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANET NAPOLITANO, HOMELAND SECURITY SECREATRY: No matter where you are this morning, from North Carolina to Maine, we encourage you to stay off the roads as much as possible so that we can keep them clear for first responders and for vehicles who are working on power restoration.

We also encourage everyone to continue listening to the instruction of their state and local officials and to advice the ready.gov for tips on how to stay safe after the storm.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We want to show you more of these images as we're getting them, because this storm's ferocious march up the coast left a trail of destruction and put a number of people in harm's way. And even with all the advance planning and all the warnings, a number of people were caught in very precarious situation. This video here shows these rescue crews in these boats, trying to help these people in a home in Elmsford, New Jersey get out, get to safety. They had to be rescued by boat when the floodwaters came rushing in.

Also this, Irene's storm surge sent a life guard station tumbling -- there it goes, along the waters. This is off of Long Beach in New York. It's -- we're told a small building but just the force of the water there, you see it lifting off its foundation, pinning it against the boardwalk.

Also a boat off the coast of the Atlantic Highlands in New Jersey, not faring so well in this storm. Irene's flood waters caused it to sink.

WHITFIELD: So of course, we have reporters all along the storm zone to bring you the very latest. Gary Tuchman in Newport, Rhodes Island, Chad Myers is tracking Irene in the CNN Hurricane Center, and Soledad O'Brien is in New York City.

So the evacuation orders for parts of New York was actually lifted just minutes ago, hundreds of thousands of people had left for higher ground ahead of Irene but today the storm pushed the rivers on either side of Manhattan kind of over their banks and into the streets but good news now, a lot of that water has receded, but just a little bit of wind they are still experiencing. You can see...

BALDWIN: Just a little bit of it.

WHITFIELD: ...backdrop from Soledad O'Brien from Lower Manhattan. Actually, Battery Park, right? It looks like a few people have left now.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yep. No, actually they are all on this side. They just kind of -- shot for some reason.

Yeah, you know, and the wind has actually really picked up. It's funny, when you guys cutaway from me, the wind blows really hard and then when you come back the wind sort of slows down for some reason.

But that evacuation order lifted in just the last couple of minutes. So we can expect to see people coming back to some of these high rises, they've been evacuated -- evacuation zone A they called it, which was a mandatory evacuation,. This is all landfill. And the concern was that if people didn't get out, if the storm was as bad as they thought it was going to be, if lots of water rushed in there would be major, major problems in some of these high rises. They didn't want that -- they got people out here.

So now people are allowed to come back. They lifted that evacuation order at 3:00. Also we're being told that the Staten Island Ferry is also running and the city is slowly getting back to normal. I've been getting tweets from people, where can I find a New York Times ? What's the best place to have breakfast? It's really an indication of just how quickly the city comes back. Because, as the mayor said, we dodged a bullet, that things could have been bad here.

There was a point, and I think we had some video that we shot a little bit earlier where I was reporting just a bit north of where i am now where the water started to recede. The Hudson topped its banks, had overflown probably 2 feet deep and then it started to recede. I want to show you a little walk and talk that we did. You can take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: So a little bit of good news to report. First, not that much rain which has been nice, because earlier this morning it was coming down pretty hard. Then, take a look at the flooding, which is over here. Just a couple of inches at this point. This was much higher, much deeper water, just about 90 minutes ago. So that is clearly going down. Some of that probably due to the fact that high tide was 8:00 this morning, a couple hours later. That's probably helping.

Let's come on this side, Jamie. And you'll see what I was sloshing through just an hour and a half ago. If you remember, we had inches and inches of water and down here 2 feet of water because this is the Hudson River right here. We're along the west side of Lower Manhattan. That was was not only was it overflowing its banks, it had overflowed its banks to a large degree. So this was all covered in water and you remember I stood up here to get out of the way.

Well, now look at that. It has drained from the area.

That combined with the fact that we're not seeing high winds. We are not seeing heavy rain is boding very well for the people in Lower Manhattan because flooding has been the big issue all morning.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: We shot that video more than three hours ago. So you can see even that long ago, the water was really receding, all of that has cleared out.

Same thing here, water came to up to where I am. It's all gone back out, and now people are coming out. I would say enjoying the weather, because it was sunny for a little bit, but now it's just getting very windy and I think that's why we don't have as many folks behind us.

Back to you in the studio.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much.

Enjoying the weather, I think that's fair to say, especially if they were tweeting wanting to know where to find breakfast earlier today.

BALDWIN: And you tell them this (inaudible) on CNN, of course.

WHITFIELD: Of course, if they have power.

BALDWIN: Soledad O'Brien, thanks you very much.

And you know, we talk a lot about New York, but it's also important to steer the conversation to Rhodes Island where we have Gary Tuchman. He rode it out apparently with a number of families. Gary Tuchman, oh, captain, my captain, standing around a bevy of boats there.

Gary, how did they fare in the storm?

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A bounty of boats, I like that. That's a great term, Brooke. And yes, we're standing on one of a bevy of boats. This is a 50-foot fishing boat called the Blondie. And it's in the Newport, Rhodes Island harbor where some boats have suffered some damage, but certainly not as bad as it could have been.

The reason I'm standing here on the Blondie -- first of the reason it's named the Blondie because the owner and son are Blondies. Right here, this is Dan and Fin Boynton. And last night we were talking to Dan, because They made the decision to sleep on this boat overnight in the middle of what was at that time Hurricane Irene, became Tropical Storm Irene.

First of all you're doing okay, which is great.

DAN BOYNTON, BOAT OWNER: Doing great.

TUCHMAN: OK, what was the scariest moment aboard this boat?

BOYNTON: I would say probably about two hours ago with the gusts from the tail end of it.

TUCHMAN: Because these were some of our strongest winds over the last two hours. The rain has let up, but it's gotten very windy.

BOYNTON: Yeah, yeah. We lost power around 10:00 this morning, so we switched over to generator. So that -- having that helped.

TUCHMAN: So the heavy rains came 3 or 4 or 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning, and I know that the tide was high that time. And the water -- and Bob you can show Bob is standing right now, the water went all the way from this boat up into the ground right there. So that must have been a little scary as the water levels went up.

BOYNTON: It was. I tell you, the staff here did a great job. They relieved some chains off this dock in case the water rose too far. And that would have been a big problem here. But they were here early in the morning for the 7:30 high tide. And it all worked out.

TUCHMAN: I know you're an expert boater, but I mean, if you did it over again, would you stay in the boat again? Because this could have gotten worse rather than better.

BOYNTON: Yeah, well, I really would have. I just feel that it's riding the storm out like this, Gary, is better in the water.

TUCHMAN: OK. What do you think, Fin? Would you do it again?

FIN BOYNTON: I would actually. Yes.

TUCHMAN: All right. Well, these guys will do it. Well, I was in a comfortable hotel, I hate to say it, but I'll have tell you that story later.

Any way, either way guys.

Brooke back to you. I can tell you that here in Newport people are considering themselves very lucky, because this is a very vulnerable city not only for the boaters -- and there has been some damage to the boats here, right?

BOYNTON: There has, yeah. A couple of boats lost some bimini tops.

TUCHMAN: The bimini tops are the very tops right here, Bob. This is a bimini tops, for those of you who don't boat very much. And a couple of the boat have lost bimini tops, but this bimini top remains.

Brooke, Fred, back to you.

BALDWIN: I bet it costs a pretty penny to fix one of those things.

WHITEFIELD: Well, glad they had an interesting ride of the storm last night.

BALDWIN: I suppose so. But look, this story is not over. We need to stress that. Irene...

WHITFIELD: It's still potentially dangerous.

BALDWIN: Absolutely. Chad Myers is standing by. Tell us where Irene is right now.

CHAD MYERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The potential now as the storm moves on up into Connecticut and even the rain up into Vermont and New Hampshire, the potential is still for the flooding guys. And so the flooding remains and the heavy rain remains from Bangor northward, back into Burlington, Vermont through Rutland and all the way down even into Pennsylvania.

I want you to notice this little tail end of a little bit of a blue rainfall band right here. Not that significant when it comes to rainfall but that's where the heaviest wind will come back into New York City in two hours.

This is where the heaviest wind is right now, right where this rainfall is. This band will move back into the city I'd say about 5:30, 6:00 tonight. And that's when the winds will blow from the west. And if anything is on the ground, and debris from the first wind event is on the ground, that debris will fly around again.

So may want to be inside for that.

Now there's an awful lot of rainfall still coming in here from Syracuse back into Burlington and also up even into Springfield. Significant flooding going on.

I'll change the map to our flood warnings and there are just flash flood warnings all the way from Maine back into Vermont, New Hampshire and down into even Pennsylvania. I just saw this coming out of an area that my parents are from, Wyoming County in Pennsylvania, from Dallas to Dupont, Edwardsville, Harvey's Lake, (inaudible) all flooded now because of the rain that fell about two hours ago. And it's not that it's probably going to rain for the rest of the day in some spots but the rain that already came down has to run off. And it goes into the creeks and streams and those creeks go up very quickly. They go down quickly too. But it's when it's up is when you have to really watch it. And certainly don't drive through it.

If you're house is getting close to the water, get out.

WHITFIELD: That's right. And a lot of city and state government leaders are still asking people to stay inside because even though it may not be raining anymore, maybe you don't have giant gale force winds, you still have the potential of a lot of those trees because of that saturated ground coming down and that is a big problem that we're seeing all up and down the east coast.

Chad, thanks so much.

MYERS: You're welcome.

WHITFIELD: So of course that soggy mess being left behind not just in Pennsylvania, not just in New York but also in the MidAtlantic States. We're talking about Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia. And you're going to see some more images coming out of Connecticut as well.

We're going to check in with our affiliate from Connecticut, D.C., Massachusetts all straight ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We come from hearty stock. We ain't moving.

UNIDENTIIFED MALE: You're not moving?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Clearly that is the case. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's it. There's the best reality show you're going to get.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But in all seriousness, are any of you concerned about the storm?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry, ma'am, what?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Only our children. My son said he was going to have me committed.

But he lives in Georgia, so what does he know.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE; We're not frivolous about this. We take this very seriously but the alternative is a nightmare.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The alternative being in a shelter.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not only being in a shelter but not knowing where we will be, not knowing where we will be. Our health does not permit most opportunities that have been offered to us. And I think that's serious. We haven't heard anything from the top level that takes that into account.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. Welcome back to our continuing coverage of Tropical Storm Irene. We like to check in with our affiliates in various cities, because they got kind of a bird's eye view of exactly what's taking place. And you can see right now at the top of your screen is WCBS, I believe we got that one right. That's going to be out of New York. Actually I think it's flip-flopped.

BALDWIN: HDH.

WHITFIELD: And you've got HDH from Boston as well. So, let's listen in right now to our affiliate in Boston? All right, in New Nork.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is going to be a problem, too, for tomorrow morning will these waters recede so people can get where they need to go on a Monday morning? And that commute as well.

We have trees down all across roadways as well. We've seen a number of pictures of roads covered by those trees. You know, these are pictures from Lynden Hearse (ph). At least these trees fell the other way, not onto houses thankfully, but not across the road either. But as as mobile 2 has been driving around the Tri-State area we have been seeing those trees down and very difficult for some to get around. BALDWIN: All right. We're going to pull away from that. That, again, WCBS out of New York. Let's go to KYW. This is our affiliate in Philadelphia. Let's listen in.

WALT HUNTER, CBS 3 NEWS: ...no one hurt fortunately, not any major damage, but it's pretty clear that with the soaking that they got down here, and in many parts of our area, combined with this second shot of winds from Irene, that sent the trees toppling and of course they were blocking the sidewalks and streets and a lot of emergency calls here within the last few hours.

Fortunately again, no injuries. The winds actually seem to be dying down and now for the merchants here a new challenge. Irene may not have packed the wallop with rain and flooding and winds we might have expected, but she did have a big economic impact. A lot of the merchants here along the Jersey Shore have lost three or four days of business and they are going to be scrambling to catch up as the Labor Day weekend approaches, one of top income weekends for the entire summer.

That's it live from the boardwalk in Wild Wood, I'm Walt Hunter, CBS 3 Eyewitness News.

BALDWIN: OK, from Pennsylvania let's move to New Jersey. More than 250 roads in New Jersey are closed and that is where Irene roared ashore this. The storm triggered flooding there and officials expect even more flooding as the rivers crest tomorrow and also into Tuesday.

Joining me now on the phone, Mayor of Hoboken, New Jersey, Don Zimmer. And Don, let's just do this quick assessment. What are you seeing midday here Sunday?

Mayor Zimmer, are you on the line?

We're working on getting the mayor. In the meantime we get a quick break in as we continue to cover a breaking story here. Tropical Storm Irene battering much of the east coast. We'll get on the horn with the mayor of Hoboken in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: We're getting great pictures and video from our ireporters all along the east coast giving us an idea what they experienced when Tropical Storm Irene came through.

As a hurricane, take a look at this along Maryland's Eastern Shore. Ireporter Sam Kempf's neighborhood got a whole lot of heavy rain and he took advantage of it as you see right there. He and some friends tied a tow rope to the back of a car and then he went street surfing.

BALDWIN: Does is this fall under the don't try this at home category?

WHITFIELD: Yeah, I was just going to say, you don't want to try this. You'll see when a big power pole comes by, he let's go very smartly of that rope so as not to get tied up in it.

Well anyway, he was going about 10 miles per hour. So yes, it was very dangerous. There it is right there. Thank goodness he let go of it right?

But you know what, he says it was better than being stuck inside.

Thankfully there's a happy ending there. Nobody got hurt.

BALDWIN: I know people get stir crazy, but come on now, I don't know about that. I don't know about that.

WHITFIELD: He's knows that too. Maybe he's a thrill seeker.

BALDWIN: I guess so. I guess so.

WHITFIELD: He and his buddies.

So meantime, you know flights, they got canceled leading up to this.

BALDWIN: Trains.

WHITFIELD: A lot of public transportation got interrupted and hopefully now some areas will resume to some sort of normalcy along the East Coast now that Irene is making its way way up to New England.

Alexandra Steele now back with us. At the travel wall, let's call it.

ALEXANDRA STREELE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right. Let's call it that.

All right you guys, you know, I heard Soledad, she's in New York and she was saying New Yorkers are so resilient. They're coming up to her. Where's the best breakfast? Where's my New York Times? They want to do the cross word puzzle why isn't it there, right? Everyone is kind of getting back on track in New York.

So are the airline or the airports following suit?

So let's take a look. Kind of an interesting perspective. What this is, it's called flight tracker. It's a quick at the second snap shot of what's happening 30,000 feet above us. All of these blueses are planes coming and going. And this is what's left of the hurricane -- kind of give you a little perspective in terms of where we are.

Right here is Long Island, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket. Down here is the Outer Banks. So right now we have 5,000 flights in the air, usually every day on average there's about 30,000 flights. Right now we've got five. And let's follow the path of the hurricane. See how these airports are bouncing back in the same kind of movement and momentum and path that Irene took.

So let's start things off farther south in Norfolk, Virginia and show you. Here's Norfolk, Virginia. Ten flights now heading into Norfolk, Virginia. Move things a little bit farther north into Washington. Of course the big airports of Dulles and Reagan National in town. Dulles right now, 84 flights beginning.

So you can see as we head farther north things kind of beginning to get back to normal, or some semblance of normality.

Going to Philadelphia right now, what do we have? Zero. Airports not open, closed. Not accepting departures or arrivals. Although, looking out on the docket I saw an 11:00 and a 12:00 coming from Canada arriving in Philadelphia, not canceled. So kind of see how that goes in terms of if you are -- kind of have some flight plans in Philadelphia.

To New York City we go. What's cooking there? Right, zero. Nothing happening in or out. But a thousand Port Authority officials are on the move to get these planes back moving again as soon as possible. Expectation guys in New York for all of the New York airports including Islip and Newwark, LaGuardia and Kennedy, expectation open tomorrow.

So we'll have to wait and see.

WHITFIELD: All right.

As maybe the case for MTA.

BALDWIN: I know. I imagine transit.

Such an eerie experience not to have -- you know, having the yellow tape across the subway entrances and exits.

WHITFIELD: I know. New Yorkers love their subway. But for now the cab drivers are getting extra business.

BALDWIN: They are.

WHITFIELD: They're working double time.

BALDWIN: All right Alexandra, thank you. Our live breaking news coverage of course the Tropical Storm Irene continues.

We're going to go to Providence, Rhodes Island where we have Kate Bolduan standing by with a firsthand look at some of the flooding there.

WHITFIELD: All right. First, let's look a look at some of these amazing images of now Tropical Storm Irene as the storm slammed into the northeast earlier today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Welcome back to our continuing coverage of Tropical Storm Irene. Tropical Storm Irene now kind of barreling through parts of New England. A lot of the northeast is kind of in the clear and along the eastern seaboard. We're going to actually hear from the president of the United States coming from the Rose Garden to kind of give an assessment of how federal response has been and where the rest of the nation goes from here.

BALDWIN: Yeah, we know the president had to cut his vacation short. He will be speaking from the Rose Garden at 5:00 eastern. We will take that live. But you can see some of the radar here with regard to the storm as it's moving northward, it's dumping all kinds of rain, record amounts of rain along the eastern seaboard and inland as well.

The flooding, huge part of this story. It's left just about 2,500 people stranded on the outer banks of North Carolina. These are some of the images here. These are some of the first pictures we're now getting from the damage in North Carolina.

And as you can see, some entire sections of roadway just ripped away. When Irene, at the time a hurricane, slammed ashore as a category 2 hurricane.

WHITFIELD: And as far as we know right now at least 15 people had actually died across six states. Some of the deaths came as a result of big trees coming down -- saturated grounds. The storm has also knocked out a lot of power to more than 4 million people along the eastern seaboard and it could be a week before everybody gets the electricity back.

And right now the storm is barreling across parts of the northeast. In Philadelphia, the flood waters are so high they are actually up to the street signs in some places and we've just received word that President Obama again will be making a statement about the storm and its damage and where we go from here. That's at 5:00 eastern time. That from the Rose Garden at the White House.

BALDWIN: But now Irene being blamed for at least one death in Maryland, but the state more or less largely escaped the storm's wrath. Emergency crews are out and about right now assessing the damage there. And many Marylanders are in recovery mode today.

Let's go to Chris Lawrence who is live now. This is Chesapeake Beach, Maryland. Chris, I'm guessing maybe sunny skies for now but what do you see around you?

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Brooke. This is a world of difference from what it was 12 hours ago. I mean, now I look around and I see the water levels have dropped so far from where they were. I'm looking at beach where beach didn't even exist before and the waves were literally just lapping up against the shore.

The big worry here wasn't so much the wind, it was the storm surge, especially with high tide coming in overnight. They were very much worried about how much water was going to get pushed onshore. But the way the winds moved, it sucked more of the water out instead of pushing it in. So a lot of people are breathing a sigh of relief.

You mentioned the death in Maryland in Queen Anne's county. The wind did collapse, a chimney on to an elderdy woman's home and it killed her.

But, you know, we've been talking to people all morning. And it's just amazing how many other people came very close to having a similar tragic story. We spoke with one man who said the power went out in his house about 8:00 at night. And it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAT HOLSON, STORM VICTIM: The lights went off. I went downstairs to work a crossword puzzle in the basement. And I was going to go upstairs in a little bit once I was getting tired.

All of a sudden I hear a wham wham and all of a sudden coming through the floor are the branches and it scared me to death, otherwise I would have been in my bed and I would have been crushed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAWRENCE: You know, the day after the hurricane, it's hard to believe all of this just happened so soon after. Of course right now bright sunny -- just incredibly beautiful day here. But as you mentioned, still a lot of people without power. 800,000 in Maryland alone.

We've been talking to a lot of them here who say, you know, they are just hoping to get the power back on and get back in their homes and everything get back to normal as soon as possible -- Brookee.

BALDWIN: That is amazing. Chris Lawrence.

Quickly, I'm curious, is the bigger story downed trees, lack of electricity as we're now getting these first images of the danger -- or rather the damage you know some 24 hours later?

LAWRENCE: Yeah, a lot of roads are closed. We were told that if and when we want to make our way back to D.C., we're going have to take a very round about way because a lot of main roads have been closed. Downed trees -- trees down on homes and a lot of those power lines are down. Some of the repair crews just now getting out late this morning and this afternoon to start taking a look at some of that damage.

BALDWIN: We're looking at it right here, amazing.

WHITFIELD: Well, you know what's interesting, Chris, is the optimists along the beaches there in Maryland are hoping that people are going to turn around and come back. I understand that a lot of businesses opened up again at about 9:00. The beaches reopened by about midday today.

BALDWIN: Labor Day weekend next weekend.

WHITFIELD: Yeah. Are you seeing traffic going across that Bay Bridge heading back toward the beach?

LAWRENCE: Well, you know, there's a restaurant here that I was talking to a lot of folks here this morning. It was one of the few that actually kept power, one of the only places. And everybody I was talking to in there was from all over Maryland. People from three or four counties over who didn't have power. And apparently, for whatever reason the Rod and Reel, this restaurant is the only place that kept power and the place has been packed all morning with people.

So I think -- you know, when people here when you come out and they are used to being around the beach and the fact that we're coming down to the end of summer and people know fall is on the way, I think people will take every opportunity they can get to experience a day like this one.

WHITFIELD: All right. Chris Lawrence, thanks so much. Chesapeake Beach, Maryland.

Let's head northward now and head to to the small state of Rhodes Island. Small state, but it, too, had some big problems with a lot of wind. But thankfully they are for most part in the clear.

BALDWIN: We're going to find our Kate Bolduan there in Providence, Rhodes Island.

All right, it looks like the wind has died down significantly since the last time we spoke to you about an hour ago.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It -- I'm going to say that and then probably get a big gust of wind which always seems to happen, as know Fredericka, whenever we come on air, we get those big gusts.

Buy yeah, the wind has seemed to die down quit a bit. We have been getting some rain off and on, but really nothing like people had expected. Much of what I heard from my colleague Chris Lawrence and I've heard from many of my colleagues across the eastern seaboard, I can mirror that in saying that many people here are relieved that what Rhodes Island experienced was much less than they anticipated and that they had feared.

I will tell you the challenge that they face now is similar as other cities and states across the east is that they have a challenge now, a power problem really with the wind damage and the wind gusts that we're still being told that we could be getting some more wind gusts later this afternoon.

There's a big concern and big challenge ahead of them in the cleanup as well as trying to get people back online, get power back to many of the homes here. We're hearing that it's possible that some half of all of the power customers in the state of Rhodes Island could be without power at this moment. We're actually trying to speak with the national grid to get them to confirm the very latest as these numbers change minute by minute.

So that is one of big problems we have.

We jumped in the car -- after our last live shot, we jumped in the car to try to get around Providence a little more to see what we could see. A lot of debris in the road, and we're hearing in neighboring towns like Warwick, they're experiencing a lot of downed power lines and a lot of trees in the road. And that's why that city, that town has restricted travel to only emergency vehicles until further notice because it's just not safe enough and they don't want people on the road. They want people to stay in their homes as much as people I'm sure are getting stir crazy and not wanting to stay in their homes anymore.

And evidence of some of the challenges that they're facing on a very small level here, we stopped by a local Dominoes, it seemed to be the only business that was open in a several miles radius. And they said that they are the only pizza place that is open. And they are turning out 300 pizzas per hour, because they have so many requests. And they're trying to get more drivers because at this point, the conditions aren't harsh enough that it's scaring people to stay in their. They want to get out. And quite simply, they are hungry. And so they'er trying to -- big business in the pizza business today, I'll tell you..

WHITFIELD: I'm sure.

BALDWIN: Kate, thanks so much in Providence. A lot of pizza eating tonight in Providence, Rhodes Island.

Let's go now, though, to New Jersey. More than 250 roads there are closed. And that's where Irene roared ashore this morning. The storm triggered flooding there. And officials expect even more flooding as rivers crest tomorrow into Tuesday.

Joining me now on the phone of Hoboken, New Jersey is Dawn Zimmer. And Dawn, from what I know about Hoboken, it's kind of like a bowl. A lot of the city is already under sea level, so it doesn't take much for your city to flood.

DAWN ZIMMER, MAYOR OF HOBOKEN: Yeah, unfortunately when we have high tide and heavy rainfall we get flooding and that's exactly what happened with this storm. And Hoboken is still -- half of Hoboken is still flooded. So we are working right now to -- we're actually bringing -- the National Guard has brought in an amphibian truck that go into the deep water.

So we are bringing in some supplies to those residents that potentially could be spending another night in their homes possibly without electricity just because the tide, the water just -- the river was so -- Hudson River was so high, the water was not actually able to recede from southwest Hoboken and there is a possibility we're going back up into high tide and those flood waters remain.

So we're taking this opportunity to bring in supplies to residents who may need them and to make sure that they are OK.

So I'm -- we're working to do that right now.

BALDWIN: Flooding an issue...

ZIMMER; Overall, I do feel like, you know, preventative measures really kept Hoboken residents safe and can't thank everyone enough for coming together and making sure our community was safe.

WHITFIELD: You know, Mayor Zimmer, I know a lot of people are saying please stay off the roads today even if you're not seeing damage outside your door step, hey want, you know, EMS crews to be able to get through, power crews to be able to get through. But I know tomorrow morning it will be tough for people getting up, getting out because they want to go to work.

What's your message for those people for tomorrow?

ZIMMER: Well, my message for them is -- Hoboken residents is to really watch the news. I mean, we've advised them, you know, come back later tonight and we are hopeful that the flooding will have subsided but there is a possibility that portions of Hoboken will still be flooded through the night depending on what happens with the Flood waters and high tide coming back.

So we're asking that they watch our web site, hobokennj.org and watch for updates.

Now, I think it's best they wait to come back to Hoboken until later tonight. Obviously, I understand people want to get back and get settled in and then head into work tomorrow. But there's still about 9,000 people in Hoboken without electricity. PSE&G is working hard to address that. But, you know, we had actually five downed wires and live wires in Hoboken and they have come in and made sure that almost all of them now, just one just in Jefferson that is still a live wire in the water.

BALDWIN: OK. But four of the five taken care of nice and quickly.

Mayor Dawn Zimmer.

ZIMMER: Hopefully people will be able to come back tonight. That is what, you know, what they need to check the website. And we're trying to you know provide as updated a list of streets that are still flooded, but western Hoboken is still very much under water.

BALDWIN: Mayor Zimmer, thanks for calling in. We appreciate it.

WHITFIELD: All right. Standing water a big problem there in Hoboken, a lot of other places as well.

Chad Myers, tell me more about where Irene is right now. MYERS: Irene is almost ready to cross into Canada. At this point in time there's New Hampshire and Vermont. The center probably about 50 or so miles south of the Canadian border. And that's bringing the winds into Maine and also a couple of wind gusts into Atlantic Canada, Nova Scotia as well.

But the rain will also be moving up into Canada. And some of that could be heavy. The good news is at this point in time, it is moving so fast, 25 to 26 miles per hour that there's not going to be time to make more flooding up there.

The flash flooding is going on all the way up and down basically the Hudson River Valley into parts of Vermont and New Hampshire. And the heaviest flooding I can find is very -- not that far from Schectady, vut very close to Fleishmann's in New York where they are getting rescues going on right there.

Notice the rain is completely gone. This would be the center of the eye as it's moved on up and there's just nothing left in the middle of the storm.

The storm diminishing rather quickly.

There are some winds here across Philadelphia, maybe knocking down trees still here, simply because the ground is just so saturated. Philadelphia had 13 inches of rain before the storm, another 6 with the storm. That's 20 inches in one month. Any tree that doesn't have very, very deep roots could be knocked down at all, I mean just with a gust of about 40 or 50 miles per hour that could certainly happen.

Now these gusts will move back into New York City in about two hours. So if you are in the city and you're saying oh, it's over, well, not quite. Some west winds going to be coming in about 40 miles per hour for you for the rest of the night.

WHITFIELD: All right. Folks still need to heed the warnings. It's still kind of potentially dangerous. So don't get too comfortable by venturing out.

All right, Chad, thanks so much.

BALDWIN: And we're now finally getting some the images coming in of the damage now. Broad daylight in a lot of these cities and states, including this life guard stand earlier when the storm hit, completely moving. We're going to continue to show you all of these pictures of the destruction of now Tropical Storm Irene.

Plus, we'll talk to the mayor of Stamford, Connecticut, check on the conditions in his city. Back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A quick reminder. We are an hour away from the president, he will be speaking back at the White House live from the Rose Garden 5:00 eastern time on Tropical Storm Irene.

And let's now go to New York. One of the concern zones I know for the New York governor, Governor Cuomo is Long Island. Let's go to Long Beach, New York. Susan Candiotti is there for us live.

And Susan -- I see a black screen. Is Susan there? There she is. Susan, can you hear me?

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDNET: Yes, I hear you loud and clear.

BALDWIN: OK. Wonderful. Tell me what you see.

CANDIOTTI: Anyway. Well, now the cleanup begins, I guess is what you could say Brooke and Fredericka, because we're getting squalls now that are in some ways almost as strong as we were getting in the middle of the night when we were out here all night watching the storm approach.

Again, we're in an area called Long Beach. This is a barrier island about 25 miles east of Manhattan. And as you've been hearing in other locations, the damage was less than they had expected but certainly -- done.

So looking down the street here, this is one of the streets that runs parallel to the south shore. One of the spots where -- here. That is typical. What is not typical is the mud that is now...

BALDWIN: All right, obviously the connection a tad precarious with Susan Candiotti there on Long Beach perhaps as a result of this storm, power issues. We're efforting to get her back up live, Susan Candiotti at Long Beach there.

To you.

WHITFIELD: All right. Well, head a little further north, to Connecticut. It, too, is dealing with a bit of a storm surge, lots of wind and rain. Let's check in and see how they are doing. I understand about 600,000 people are without power in the state of Connecticut.

Onto to Stamford, Connecticut now. And Mayor Michael Pavia, you and I spoke yesterday, and you talked about the concerns of that storm surge. So how did your city fare?

MICHAEL PAVIA, MAYOR OF STANFORD, CONNECTICUT: Well, Fredericka, fortunately we fared well. The surge we were worried about the coincidence of the surge and the peak runoff of the heavy rainfall. And then combine that with the winds that are pushing water back on land, we were able to dodge that bullet.

We saw some surging. We saw some highways. It was a very angry Long Island Sound. We saw flooding of roads. We saw some many, many trees down. In fact in the northern country, the streets are littered with branches and leaves, it's almost like a leaf confetti all over.

The third leg of this storm, the tripod, is the cleanup and restoration. And that's going to take us quite a while from what I saw and what I can see.

We are currently without power, about 20,000 of our residents which is about 20 percent of our residents, are without power through the city of Stamford, primarily in the northern section. We're waiting for the utility company to dispatch the crews that we were promised that would be here Sunday. Haven't yet arrived.

Unfortunately we're all ready to go and we're waiting for the most important people to show up.

WHITFIELD: What do you suppose the holdup is?

PAVIA: I'm sorry?

WHITFIELD: What do you suppose the holdup is?

PAVIA: I don't know. We're trying to get to the bottom of that right now. But that storm was anticipated. It was predicted how many weeks in advance and now we're waiting for crews to show up, unacceptable.

WHITFIELD: So it's very frustrating perhaps just traversing because of the weather that is so widespread, might that be one of the reasons why?

PAVIA: We don't know. We think that maybe the crews that were originally planning to arrive here in lower Fairfield county in this area which was projected to be the eye of the bull's-eye, eye of the storm, suddenly found their way in other locations. That's the only reason I can give it.

But we're poised and ready to go. We have all of our crews on the ground ready to go. And to restore the power as quickly as possible.

WHITFIELD: All right. Well, hopefully...

PAVIA: There's just one thing missing.

WHITFIELD: OK. Well, hopefully those 20,000 will get the kind assistance that you're calling on there. Mayor Michael Pavia, thanks so much for your time. And glad that you all fared fairly well from Irene.

BALDWIN: You can hear the frustration in his voice, wanting those people to get the power back on. And you know we're getting a lot of images as we're continuing to cover this storm, from you, from our ireporters, all the way from North Carolina up to Maine. We'll share more of the videos, special coverage of Tropical Storm Irene. Back in two minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WHITFIELD: All right. We've been getting a lot of dramatic images in not just from our own crews, but from our ireporters as well. Take a look at what Irene and our ireporters have delivered.

Tyler Greenepope took this image of a little boy, you can see him right there, walking along as New York's East River overflows the banks into Astoria, New York. Kind of a little risky there. That's the Queens Borough Bridge behind him there. You can see Manhattan in the distance.

The photographer told us that the flooding was unlike anything he had ever seen.

BALDWIN: And for more of these ireports, let's go to Josh Levs who is here, going through all these different videos. Josh, what are you seeing?

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, ireporters are really helping tell the story. And it's a sign of the times, what's going on. Main page of cnn.com, we have open story. And this right here, all these red eyes are where we're getting ireports from in the path of Irene. And you can see it's been going on for quite a while.

You just click on any one of them and see some of the images. These are some we had been getting out of North Carolina. Manage to go farther up. You just click farther up the coast and you see some of the latest images coming from farther up.

This image right here out of Princeton Junction in New Jersey.

I've got a video to show you. Take a look.

Look at that street. And you're hearing the wind against the microphone there with the camera. This is out of Far Rockaway, one of the areas in New York that authorities have been concerned about there. From Rilwan Akinola (ph) who just went out to the street and saw heck of a lot of flooding there. That was from earlier today, this afternoon.

One more video. Take a look at this next one. More of the same there. That's out of union, New Jersey where the streets are flooded. Michael Ramas went out there, saw some officials trying to figure out what to do and working with the residence trying to keep them out of these flooded areas sort of taking its time in some ares to recede.

So we're following all sorts of images, photos, videos, whatever you are sending us. If you've been in a position to send them safely, go ahead and join the discussion at ireport.

We're also following pictures that are getting sent around on Twitter. And I want to show you these that were sent out by North Carolina Emergency Management. Take a look here. They came in not long ago from the Twitter of North Carolina Emergency Management over by NC12, showing the major breach right there. And you can see that. Look. Gone. It's just gone.

They sent out one more as well. Look over here. You see the water is gushing all the way up through.

We're also getting your videos, your photos on Facebook, every which way.

Take a look at my screen here. I'm going to be hearing from you throughout this evening, throughout this afternoon and evening. I'm at JoshLevscnn. Cnn.com/josh.

Go ahead and send whatever it is you've got. And I encourage you to join the open story, to help tell this story. We're in a lot of places. But Fred and Brooke, we can't be everywhere. Fortunately, our ireporters are just about everywhere.

WHITFIELD: Well, that last image looked like something Chad showed us earlier. It was there. There was a piece of property there. It's now gone.

LEVS: It's gone.

Yeah, we had some aerial video coming in. These photos are going all over on Twitter helping reach everyone with the images of what's been happening so many places.

WHITFIELD: Yeah, thanks so much.

BALDWIN: Thank you, Josh.

WHITFIELD: Thank you for sending us the images as well.

BALDWIN: You know feeling Irene's power like very few have. You know that there are hurricane hunters out there? We leave hurricanes, she flies into them. We'll talk to her on the other side of the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Not a lot of people have seen what was hurricane Irene, now Tropical Storm Irene, quite like Captain Nicole Mitchell.

Mitchell is a hurricane hunter. Did you know that existed? She actually flies right into the eye of the storm. And she did so when Irene was still a category 1 hurricane.

And she did so seven times.

Nicole joins me by phone from Savannah, Georgia. And Nicole, forgive me, I've been on the west coast on vacation. I have not gotten to talk to you yet. And I'm excited about it, because let me just ask you, why are you flying into a hurricane?

NICOLE MITCHELL, HURRICANE HUNTER: Well, we're a military group that works hand in hand with the National Hurricane Center. And when storms are over water, there's not as much data as what you have over land. So we fly right inside to find out the winds, the pressure, some of the temperatures inside the eye, how big the storms are all those parameters that help the hurricane center then put out a better forecast.

WHITFIELD: So captain, you've done this before. You mentioned yesterday to me that you would fly about six hours around this storm. How did this one compare to previous hurricanes that you've flown through before?

MITCHELL: Well, typically when a storm is over water, we're flying inside it but an x pattern, through the middle, out a different side, and then coming back from a different position. So we really see all sides of the storm and over those six hours gone through the center a few different times to get a trend.

Because this was basically just off the coastline, we were only predominantly flying the east side. And with what the storm was doing, we were targeting winds more than normal. So we were flying out from the center a little farther than normal, usually we fly out about 100 miles. This time we were flying out as much as 150 miles because some of the stronger winds were out that far, which is unusual for a tropical system.

Usually you see the higher winds right next to the center.

BALDWIN: So tell me what that feels like. What is that like being in that wind sheer, the kind of turbulence that you experience?

MITCHELL: It depends on the storm. If the storm is closer to land, then you get the friction from the storm interacting with land that causes a little bit more turbulence. This storm actually from our first past through our last lost the eyewall presentation. And usually it's in the eyewall that we get the stronger storms.

So the turbulence wasn't one of the worst flights I've definitely seen out there. But we definitely get turbulence. We get bumped around a little bit depending on the storm.

BALDWIN: So I suppose in your line of work you are looking forward to the next hurricane, looking forward into flying into the eyewall again? Is that how that works?

MITCHELL: Well, you know, I'm a meteorologist. And I love a little adventure. So for me being able to fly inside a hurricane and see everything up close is just awesome. And it's a really good helpful job that, you know, saves lives. So all those things are good.

You look forward to it in that respect. Of course...