Update : Millions are without power.
East Coast tries to pick up pieces after devastation left by Irene
By
the CNN Wire Staff
August 29, 2011 8:39 a.m. EDT
Floodwater races through Brattleboro, Vermont.
Brattleboro, Vermont (CNN) -- The torment from Irene isn't over as parts of the East Coast grappled Monday with still-dangerous flood waters, widespread power outages and stranded residents.
At least 21 deaths in nine states were blamed on Irene, which fizzled to a post-tropical cyclone and headed over eastern Canada on Monday.
About 3 million customers were without power across the path traveled by Irene.
But much of the remaining trouble centered on flooding from North Carolina through New England, with homes inundated and roads torn apart by floodwaters.
Some of the worst flooding since 1927 ravaged Vermont's normally tranquil countryside, turning babbling brooks into turbulent rivers, knocking homes from their foundations and washing away a young woman who had been standing near the river in Wilmington.
Her body was recovered.
In all, 260 roads were affected, many of them underwater, Vermont's Emergency Management Department said Monday.
Four to six covered bridges were destroyed and others were washed out, it said.
In the capital city of Montpelier, water crested overnight at 19.5 feet, just shy of the 20-foot prediction, but levels throughout the state were receding Monday morning.
The emergency management headquarters flooded overnight and was evacuated and relocated from Waterbury to Burlington, approximately 20 miles away.
In North Carolina, more than 340,000 customers were without power Monday, down from more than 440,000 on Sunday night, the state's emergency management department said.
As many as 200 residents were isolated and without power Monday on Ocracoke Island, near where Irene had first made landfall as a hurricane on Saturday. Supply transport to Ocracoke was hampered as ocean waves dislodged large chunks of a key roadway.
Dunes at Ocracoke's northern end "have apparently been spread across the road, so no one yet knows how badly the pavement is damaged," said Clayton Gaskill, manager of Ocracoke's tiny FM radio station WOVV.
And in Plattsville, New York, seven Brooklyn families who thought they had escaped the storm's wrath were stranded Monday in the Catskill Mountains after bridges crumbled around them.
"We're sitting in one room, and it's a horrible situation and there is no way out," said Irina Noveck, who was stuck along with 22 other adults and children. "Kids are getting scared, food is getting spoiled."
But life along much of the East Coast was expected to return to normal Monday, as subway services resumed in New York City and the three major airports in the area reopened after thousands of flights were canceled over the weekend. Flight schedules were expected to normalize slowly.
Amtrak had some service in the Northeast, but much was canceled.
The New York Stock Exchange was expected to open on time.
The U.S. government estimated that the cost from wind damage alone will exceed $1 billion. Downed power lines left more than 4 million customers without electricity during Irene's weekend journey up the East Coast.
"The impacts of this storm will be felt for some time, and the recovery effort will last for weeks or longer," President Barack Obama said Sunday evening from Washington.
In New Jersey -- which had called for the evacuation of more than 1 million people from the shore -- initial fears about coastal flooding gave way to fresh concerns about inland flooding, as an array of rivers and creeks eclipsed flood stages and continued to rise Monday.
That left residents like Guy Pascarello, whose family's Secaucus home of 40 years was declared uninhabitable after it became inundated by 3-foot-high waters, trying to figure out what to do next.
"This is all new ground," Pascarello said. "The good news is that it's just stuff. This is a home and we love our home, but it's just things."
Even locations well inland, such as Princeton Junction about halfway between New York City and Princeton, saw 12-foot waters that covered roads and bridges, resident Edward Picco said Sunday.
Along the shore in Long Beach, New York, water poured underneath the boardwalk and into the city's downtown.
Outside Philadelphia, meanwhile, waters climbed to street-sign levels in Darby, with the water sending "couches, furniture, all kinds of stuff floating down the street," Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said. Two buildings collapsed in Philadelphia, Nutter told reporters, but no one was hurt.
Officials reported six deaths in North Carolina, four in Virginia, four in Pennsylvania, two in New York and one each in Connecticut, Maryland, Florida, New Jersey and Vermont. Authorities were trying to determine whether another death reported in New York is connected to the storm.
Connecticut emergency management spokesman Scott Devico said one man was missing in river waters in the inland town of Bristol, while two people were unaccounted for in East Haven after their home was swept away.
In North Carolina, where Irene dropped more than 15 inches of rain in some places, 2,500 people on Hatteras Island who did not heed calls for them to leave before Irene struck were without a way to leave on Monday. Emergency ferry service was expected to begin later in the day. On the island, Highway 12 was chopped into pieces by the pounding surf.
The U.S. Navy was sending three warships to help with serach-and-rescue efforts along the coast.
In Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, firefighters -- blocked by floodwaters -- were unable to reach a house that caught fire; it burned to the ground.
Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, vowed Sunday that authorities would work with those affected by Irene.
"When the disaster comes off the news and no one is paying attention, we still don't go home," he said. "We know we've got a lot of work ahead of us."
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