Flooding Continues to Hamper Northeast Irene Recovery Efforts

Aug. 31: The swollen Passaic River floods River Road in Paterson, N.J. (AP)

TRENTON, N.J. – Weary residents across the Northeast pulled soggy furniture and ruined possessions onto their front lawns as they cleaned up and surveyed the damage wrought by Hurricane Irene.

The mess of destroyed furniture on Paul Postma's front lawn looked like a yard sale gone wrong. Over the weekend, Postma had watched as more than two feet of water filled the bottom level of his home in Lincoln Park, N.J. On Wednesday, he was using bleach to wipe down the house's mud-soaked walls.

"None of this has value," he said. "At least not anymore."

Flooding continues to hamper recovery efforts from Hurricane Irene in northern New Jersey while residents can begin seeking aid under a disaster declaration signed by President Barack Obama, after clearing the way for residents in Bergen, Essex, Morris, Passiac and Somerset counties to seek disaster aid by appling online or by calling 1-800-621-FEMA on Wednesday.

Obama will visit Paterson, N.J., on Sunday where currents of the Passaic River swept through the city of 150,000, flooding part of downtown and forcing the emergency evacuations of hundreds of people who likely underestimated the storm's ferocity.

National Guard helicopters ferried supplies to mountain communities in Vermont that had no electricity, no telephone service and limited transportation in or out. Elsewhere, the massive cleanup effort was already well under way at homes, farms and businesses across the flood-scarred landscape.

Repair estimates indicated that the storm would almost certainly rank among the nation's costliest natural disasters. Even as rivers finally stopped rising in Vermont, New Jersey and Connecticut, many communities and farm areas remained flooded, and officials said complete damage estimates were nowhere in sight.

An estimate released immediately after Irene by the Kinetic Analysis Corp., a Maryland-based consulting firm that uses computer models to estimate storm losses, put the damage at $7.2 billion in eight states and Washington, D.C.

That would eclipse damage from Hurricane Bob, which caused $1 billion in damage in New England in 1991 or the equivalent of about $1.7 billion today, and Hurricane Gloria, which swept through the region in 1985 and left $900 million in damage, the equivalent of $1.9 billion today, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

Large sections of Wallington, N.J., remained underwater after a cruel one-two punch: The Passaic River flooded the heart-shaped hamlet Sunday and then receded, only to rise again late Tuesday, forcing a new round of evacuations.

Kevin O'Reilly said the water shattered basement windows in his home.

"It sounded like Niagara Falls," O'Reilly said. "It just filled up immediately, and this is what we've been dealing with since then."

The town is accustomed to moderate flooding because it sits atop a network of underground streams that form a water table already saturated by record August rainfall.

In Vermont, at Killington Elementary School, residents came for a free hot dog and corn-on-the-cob. Jason and Angela Heaslip picked up a bag filled with peanut butter, cereal and toilet paper for their three children and three others who are visiting from Long Island.

"Right now, they're getting little portions because we're trying to make the food last," said Jason Heaslip, who only has a dollar in his bank account because the storm has kept him from getting paid by the resort where he works.

Don Fielder, a house painter in Gaysville, Vt., said the White River roared through his house, tearing the first floor off the foundation and filling a bathroom tub with mud. He was upbeat as he showed a visitor the damage, but said he's reluctant to go into town for fear he will cry when people ask about the home he built himself 16 years ago.

Other losses include a 1957 Baldwin piano and a collection of 300 Beanie Babies amassed by his daughter, who does not live with him but has a bedroom at his house.

"I bet that's in the river," he said.

In Plymouth, Vt., Chris Tomborello was sitting on the front porch of her cabin Thursday with her 13-year-old son, Prestin. They had come from their home in Fairfield, Conn., to escape Irene.

"We were like `ha ha ha' thinking we're escaping the hurricane," she said.

Now they're stuck in a cabin without power. A neighbor lent them buckets to carry water to flush their toilets. They have food and water, but they can't cook, so they've been subsisting on peanut butter sandwiches.

Irene has led to the deaths of at least 46 people in 13 states. If that death toll stands, it would be comparable to 1999's Hurricane Floyd, which also struck North Carolina and charged up the East Coast into New England, causing most of its 57 deaths by inland drowning.

At the time, it was the deadliest U.S. hurricane in nearly 40 years but was later dwarfed by the 1,800 deaths caused by Katrina in 2005.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo estimated the damage to his state alone at $1 billion during a visit to Prattsville, a Catskills community where 600 homes were damaged by heavy rains and floods that also shredded roads and washed out bridges.

"Upstate New York paid a terrible, terrible price for this storm," Cuomo said.

In North Carolina, where Irene blew ashore along the Outer Banks on Saturday before heading for New York and New England, Gov. Beverly Perdue said the hurricane destroyed more than 1,100 homes and caused at least $70 million in damage.

Downstream from Vermont's devastating floods, the Connecticut River hit levels not seen in 24 years, though flood-control dams and basins installed half a century ago helped prevent a disaster along the lower Connecticut River.

In Simsbury, Conn., several farm fields were flooded along the Farmington River. Pumpkins and other produce could be seen floating away.

"Farmers lost a good amount of crops," said First Selectwoman Mary Glassman.

Connecticut officials on Thursday told people who get their drinking water from 69 small local providers to boil it while officials check whether the flooding affected the quality.

Power outages persisted across the region, with some of the largest in Connecticut, where about 260,000 homes and businesses were still in the dark Thursday morning, and New York and Virginia, which each had around 180,000 customers without power.

In the ski resort town of Killington, Vt., residents volunteered to use their lawn tractors to help remove mud and debris. People with electricity were letting neighbors without water use their showers. One question was whether the camaraderie would wear thin before things returned to normal.

Karen Dalury, who did not have power at her home, said she had been eating vegetables from her garden and storing some in a neighbor's freezer.

"For now it's fine," she said, "but who knows how long this is going to continue."
Amtrak service ramped up again Thursday with several key lines restarting regular operations, including between Harrisburg, Pa., and New York via Philadelphia. For a time, the busy Northeast Regional line connecting Boston to Washington was cut off by flooding in Trenton, N.J.

But northwest of New York City, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said its Port Jervis line suffered catastrophic damage that might take months to fix.

With Irene gone, scientists turned their attention to the open Atlantic Ocean, where Hurricane Katia was gaining strength. Meteorologists said it was too soon to determine where it might go. Forecasters also watched a system in the Gulf of Mexico that could become a tropical depression.