East coast residents struggled to get out of Irene’s way on Friday and Saturday, and those who couldn’t leave or chose not to heed warnings reportedly made a run on stores looking for food, water, batteries, flashlights, generators and other supplies.
Traffic Jams 20 Miles Long As Over 2.5 Million People Are Evacuated In The Face of Extensive Storm Surge Flooding From Hurricane Irene, Which Has Already Set Record Highs In North Carolina.
Top developments:
- 2.5 million under evacuation orders; 550,000 are in NYC, Long Island
- NYC, N.J., Philadelphia to suspend mass transit service during part of weekend
- Hard rain falls on North Carolina’s Outer Banks; max winds weaken to 100 mph
- Obama to leave vacation island a day early due to Irene
- States Of Emergency Issued In ME, MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, PA, DE, MD, NJ
- Hurricane Warning Issued ForNorth of Sandy Hook, New Jersey all the way to Sagamore Beach, Massachusetts, including New York city, Long Island, Long Island Sound, Coastal Connecticut, Rhode Island, Block Island, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.
- Massive storm surge warning issued along entire east coast from NC northward to MA.
- North Carolina already hit by record high storm surge flood levels
- Flood model forecasts for Central NJ and NY City Area
- Irene models show Cape May underwater
- NJ gas stations out of gas
- Major highways being shutdown or re-routed for one way traffic
- Irene now much larger than Katrina
- Officials say it may take weeks to help the 65 million people estimated to be impacted.
When you wait until the last minute to prepare, then you can be ready for complete pandemonium and a veritable breakdown in civility and mass group psychology:
“People are freaking out,” said Sarah Young, one of the owners of the Surfside Motel in Oak Bluffs. “They think the island is going to be wiped away. Literally, someone asked me if the island was going to be here after the storm. . . . We’ve basically just been trying to calm people down.”
Flashlights, bottled water and other emergency staples were in short supply in stores across the state as shoppers heeded warnings that the storm’s mighty winds will topple trees and tear down power lines, potentially disrupting service for days.
“It’s complete mayhem in there,” said Lauren Downey, 30, of Boston outside the Stop & Shop at the South Bay plaza. “There’s nowhere to walk. There’s a run on water and people are just pushing their way through.”
Source: Boston Herald
With the earthquake and Hurricane Irene, the East Coast has undergone an emergency situation for almost seven days.
We have yet to see how severe the aftermath will be, but according to reports the Hurricane is weakening. Let’s hope the result doesn’t end up like Hurricane Katrina.
If people are freaking out now, what would it look like after a major terrorist attack or region-wide natural disaster that spans weeks or months and takes down emergency response, city water filtration systems, and transportation of essential goods?
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