CNN news 2011-09-01
The lights are up here on CNN Student News, but they’re out for millions of Americans on the East Coast. I’m Carl Azuz, reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. It only took a couple days for the storm to billow up the Eastern Seaboard, but it could be a long time before some places in its path get back to normal. Some hard numbers for you, 3 million, the number of Americans living without electricity; 700,000, an estimate of how many air travelers were ground because of the storm; billions, monetary estimates for the damage caused. And here’s one reason for that.Look at these floodwaters in Vermont. This is the state that really took the brunt of the storm, with virtually every waterway it has flooded. State police captain says southern Vermont is pretty much shut down. State’s under what could be its worst flooding since 1927. Authorities here and in New Jersey had warned that the flooding would get worse in the days after the storm. The problems for so many other folks, well, you can see it in these pictures. Some power lines fell in Irene’s gusty winds. Others were taken out by falling trees, some of those literally uprooted in the storm. Dozens of people died when Irene came through. Floods, falling trees, accidents, power lines, all of them to blame. Another danger in a hurricane is its storm surge. This is this wall of ocean water that a system blows in. It can affect any stretch of coastline, but it’s particularly threatening to barrier islands, like the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This is a thin strip of land, sitting between the state and the Atlantic Ocean. And because part of it was cut off, CNN’s Brian Todd had to take a helicopter to reach the area to file this report.
We did get some great aerial shots from our helicopter from the National Guard, as we went with them on a damage assessment mission around Hatteras Island and Ocracoke Island. And we saw flooded-out roads, entire flooded neighborhoods. One older home not only got hit with the hurricane, but caught on fire and burned down. Then we saw the reason why this place was cut off. This incredible breach on Highway 12, running north to south, that connects Hatteras Island to some of the other Outer Banks barrier islands, which then connects those islands to the mainland through causeways, but this section of Highway 12, incredible. It looked like an earthquake hit it. The road caved in, it was chopped up, there were power lines down. The Atlantic Ocean is now running over it, essentially. I asked a local resident, Matthew Williams, just what people were thinking.
But what’s the philosophy? Why do, why do people like you stay through this?
I don’t know. I guess it’s -- I don’t know, you know, we, we were, we grew up here. The main thing is getting back. You know, when you’re gone, you know, you’re wondering what, your belongings, your property, you’re wondering how it is, you know. It’s your whole life here, so it’s kind of hard to leave.
Now another resident told us that folks there have lived through stronger hurricanes, at least technically stronger, Category 2, 3 and even 4 hurricanes that they’ve stuck around for. But this same resident told us, even with that, he’s still never seen flooding like this. And they haven’t really had a breach on that highway since at least 2003, when Hurricane Isabel blew through. But that breach, we’re told, may be the most severe they’ve ever had.