UPDATE 6:20 p.m. 8/29/2011As Hurricane Irene—now a tropical storm—moves farther north, it has left behind severe flooding in the Northeast. 
 
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator W. Craig Fugate, did not provide an estimate of Irene’s damage. He told reporters in an Aug. 29 mid-day conference call for reporters that FEMA is awaiting estimates from officials in the affected states.
 
Fugate says, “We just don’t know how big the numbers are going to be on this storm.”
 
David Vallee, hydrologist in charge of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northeast River Forecast Center, in Taunton, Mass., said in the same conference call that there is still “moderate to major flooding” in parts of Eastern New York state,  the Connecticut River Valley and much of New Hampshire and Vermont. 
 
Vallee says that the middle Hudson and middle and lower Connecticut rivers had yet to crest as of mid-day Aug. 29 and said that the Connecticut isn’t expected to crest until mid-week.
 
He says Irene put “an awful lot of rain along and into the west of her track.” In a 24-36 hour period, he adds, the storm poured between five and 15 inches of rain in the area from northern New Jersey through the Hudson and Connecticut river valleys.
 
But what made the flooding worse was a thunderstorm that that hit the region a week or 10 days before Irene struck, soaking the soil and producing stream flows much higher than normally expected for mid- to late August. 
 
“That antecedent condition…is really the catalyst for these remarkable floods that we’ve experienced,” Vallee says.
 
Fugate also says that to husband remaining resources in its Disaster Relief Fund, FEMA won’t draw on the fund to finance not-yet-approved permanent repairs to structures damaged by earlier disasters. 
 
FEMA reportedly has less than $1 billion in the disaster fund to last until Oct. 1, when the next federal fiscal year starts.

--Tom Ichniowski

UPDATE 2:30 p.m. 8/28/2011

In a televised press conference, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told residents that "the worst is over" and we now in "return and restore" mode. He announced that as of 3 p.m., the city would lift its evactuation order and allow residents to return to homes in low-lying areas of the city.

   The mayor reported that the World Trade Center site did not sustain significant damage. Cranes on the site were secured, and crews should be "back to work tomorrow." He said the 9/11 memorial is still on schedule to open on Sept. 11.

   The city has no reports of deaths or injuries due to the storm.

   Con Ed reports 62,000 households out of power at this time, and it did not have to shut down any potion of the power grid as feared to protect the system.

   The New York City Fire Department is "up in the air" with a senior engineer from the buildings department surveying damage, but already all bridges and tunnels are open. The mayor encouraged residents to report damage on the city's website using a electronic damage reporting tool that will help the city's Office of Emergency Management deploy state OEM and FEMA workers to make assessments and repairs.

   The critical question for New York City residents is: When will the vast transportation network of subways and buses, taken out of service to protect the system, be up and running again?

   The answer: Service is not resuming today. It will be back late tomorrow afternoon at best, according to Bloomberg.

   The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has begun the process of assessing storm damage. The system did experience power outages and flooding. After physical inspections of both elevated and underground track, MTA is running pump trains, then running non-revenue trains to make sure the tracks are safe and then getting equipment and people back in place. For example, no trains are currently located in Brooklyn. All were relocated because of potential flooding in the train yards.

   Finally, more good news: There was no flooding with intrusion of salt water in the under-river tunnels.

   --Jan Tuchman

UPDATE 10:45 A.M. 8/28/2011

Cleanup is beginning in New York City, although there is a significant risk of falling trees now as the wind comes up again. Before I go down to start getting the flood out of the basement, though (it is such a normally dry one there are no sump pumps) I want to share a wee-hours of the morning design to catch the leaks running out of the woodwork framing one of my front windows. Being on the bottom floor of a 120 year-old brownstone can bring all the ailments of the four stories above to your living room. This worked like a dream. It's a large plastic bag, sliced down one side with the other corner clipped to turn it into a funnel.

Wish i had thought of it earlier.

And one more note from Jim Parsons in Virginia for now: Overwash damage to Route 12 near Rodanthe is apparently large enough to warrant NCDOT to begin emergency ferry service.
 --TS   

UPDATE 9:53 8/28/2011

New York City is doing pretty well, but sea water is brimming in lower Manhattan, flooding in some areas, but the consequences are not yet clear. High tide for this cycle has passed, however, and water is receding. Rain is pulling off. Saturated ground and 65 knot winds are the main concern for the next few hours. Public transportation is still shut down and subways may not resume operations until the entire system has been checked out. Trains may not run until Monday night, although no official timetable has been announced. 

There is a lot of heavy flooding reported throughout the region.

NCDOT reports a 100-200 yard area along Route 12 in Rodanthe, on the N.C Outer Banks that is washed out, including pavement, with a 3-6 ft escarpment. This is likely the same area that has suffered repeated washouts in the past.   

UPDATE 8:40 a.m. 8/28/2011 Southwest tail of Irene still bringing rain, wind to northern Va. 2 million without power. Metro Richmond as hard-hit as Hampton Roads.
Norfolk storm surge was 7.63, less than what was recorded during Isabel. VDOT and NCDOT beginning road assessments.
 Delmarva Peninsula: Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Md. and Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel in Va. remain closed due to high winds; causeway to Chincoteague in Va. has been reopened.  Hampton Roads: Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel reopened; James River Bridge and Midtown Tunnel remain closed NC: NCDOT "cleaning up" Route 12 on Hatteras Island; ferry service set to resume.
 Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Md. is offline due to transformer that was struck by hurricane debris. No problems with shutdown. In Va, power seems to be coming back one house at a time. Only 2 million to go.  -- JP 

UPDATE 12:45 P.M. 8/28/2011

As wind and rain intensifies outside an interesting observation comes from the National Hurricane Center about how this particular storm is likely to socialize with high rise buildings it enounters:

IRENE WILL BE MOVING OVER PROGRESSIVELY COOLER WATER UNTIL LANDFALL OCCURS ON LONG ISLAND...WHICH WOULD NORMALLY RESULT IN SIGNIFICANT WEAKENING OF MOST HURRICANES. HOWEVER...DUE TO THE UNUSUALLY LARGE WIND FIELD OF IRENE...ONLY SLOW WEAKENING IS EXPECTED THROUGHOUT THE FORECAST PERIOD...AND IT WILL ONLY TAKE MODEST CONVECTION TO BRING DOWN STRONGER WINDS ALOFT TO THE SURFACE AS SUSTAINED HURRICANE-FORCE WINDS OR GUSTS.  MORE SO THAN WITH MOST STORMS...THE WINDS WITH IRENE INCREASE SHARPLY WITH HEIGHT ABOVE THE SURFACE.  AS IRENE MOVES THROUGH AREAS WITH HIGH-RISE STRUCTURES...THESE BUILDINGS COULD EXPERIENCE WINDS SIGNIFICANTLY STRONGER THAN THE SURFACE WINDS.  WINDS AT THE 30-STORY LEVEL WILL LIKELY BE 20 PERCENT HIGHER THAN AT THE SURFACE...AND WINDS 80-100 STORIES UP COULD BE ABOUT 30 PERCENT HIGHER THAN AT THE SURFACE.