http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,97624,00.html D.C. Shuts Down for Second Day
The capital city suffered from a rare power vacuum Friday. Thousands of residents were without lights, hundreds of trees littered the landscape and all three branches of government were basically shut down.
Lights were out at the Supreme Court and federal offices; President Bush remained at his secluded mountaintop retreat in Maryland and members of Congress for the most part stayed out of town.
For some 700 emergency work crews, the order of the day was to restore power and clean up the scattered tree limbs and other debris; the area's normally busy transit systems cranked slowly back into gear and school kids enjoyed another day off.
A scene in front of the White House was not atypical.
A workman with a chain saw was cutting up fallen tree limbs on the North Lawn of the White House. High winds overnight broke off part of an ash near the fence facing the Executive Mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue and toppled part of a tulip poplar. None of the historic trees on the 18-acre compound was lost, workers said. Late Thursday, a tree fell to the street along the city's Embassy Row, wreaking havoc with traffic.
The Potomac River (search) surged beyond its banks and flooded some shoreside streets in Washington and the colonial-era downtown in suburban Alexandria, Va (search).
"We've given out 11,000 sandbags and our supply has been exhausted," said Sarah Miller, an Alexandria city spokeswoman.
Trees and power lines knocked down by gusty winds littered many streets, and dozens of traffic lights were out.
"If you don't need to come in the city, please don't," Peter LaPorte, director of the city's emergency management agency. said at daybreak. "A number of our main roads are covered with trees."
More than 120,000 customers lost power in the District of Columbia along with more than 525,000 in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs. By morning, city officials said more than 80,000 were still without power.
At Arlington National Cemetery (search), soldiers who guard the Tomb of the Unknowns were given -- for the first time ever -- permission to abandon their posts and seek shelter, Superintendent John Metzler said. But they stood guard anyhow.
Despite the mess, Washington's emergency management agency had no reports of injuries or serious damage.
"It could have been so much worse, and we were prepared for it to be so much worse," said Alan Etter, D.C. Fire and EMS spokesman.
Michael Davis, a deliveryman for Domino's Pizza (search) in downtown Washington, said the storm meant a prosperous time for him.
"Everybody's tipping a lot better," Davis said. "They've been very understanding about the fact that the pizza's not going to be on time."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,97774,00.html State-by-State Look at Isabel's Effects
State-by-State Look at Isabel's Effects
Friday , September 19, 2003
RICHMOND, Va. — The following is a state-by-state look at the effects of Hurricane Isabel (search) after it came ashore:
NORTH CAROLINA: President Bush declared a major disaster in North Carolina, where the hurricane made landfall along the Outer Banks (search). The death of an electrical worker was blamed on the storm. About 590,000 customers were without electricity; 8,400 people went to shelters.
VIRGINIA: Bush declared a major disaster in Virginia, where high wind knocked out power for more than 1.6 million customers. Six people were killed in a pair of weather-related traffic accidents. Three others also died: Two were killed by falling trees and the other drowned while canoeing. More than 16,000 people went to shelters.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: The federal government shut down Friday for a second day. Metro subway and bus service were suspended through at least Friday morning, and city schools were closed. Mayor Anthony A. Williams declared a state of emergency. At least 129,000 customers lost power. No one was injured.
MARYLAND: Gov. Robert Ehrlich declared state of emergency. Two Marylanders were killed in separate weather-related traffic accidents. Ehrlich said 630 National Guard troops were on active duty and 540,000 sandbags were prepared. Officials said 1.25 million customers were without power.
DELAWARE: Gov. Ruth Ann Minner declared state of emergency. Some 105,000 customers were without power. About 400 people sought refuge in shelters.
NEW JERSEY: Gov. James E. McGreevey declared a state of emergency. Some 160,000 customers lost power. One person was killed and another trapped after a tree fell on a car. In Perth Amboy, a power line went down in front of the city's main firehouse, preventing fire engines from entering and exiting. Miss America pageant (search) officials said they would go ahead with the annual Boardwalk parade Friday night. There were 95 canceled flights at Newark Liberty International Airport.
NEW YORK: In Long Beach, a 42-year-old man apparently drowned while swimming in the ocean. Police said the cause had not been officially determined so they could not say whether it was weather-related. There were about 22,120 outages on Long Island, and about 9,100 in Westchester and New York City. There were no reported delays or cancellations at Kennedy or LaGuardia airports early Friday.
PENNSYLVANIA: Gov. Ed Rendell declared state of emergency. A motorist was killed early Friday when a tree fell on his car. About 700,000 customers lost power. Philadelphia International Airport canceled 20 percent of its departures. More than 150 flights from Pittsburgh International Airport to East Coast destinations were canceled. A 58-year-old man was knocked unconscious when a sign blew over and fell on him. Schools across central Pennsylvania closed Friday, as did some districts in the northeastern region.
RHODE ISLAND: A 67-year-old man died after he was swept into the ocean by a giant wave while walking with his wife along the rocks of Narragansett's Black Point.
WEST VIRGINIA: Officials reported about 24,000 power outages, mostly in the Eastern Panhandle. Flood warnings were issued for rivers in four counties, and flooding was reported in Petersburg. The South Branch of the Potomac River was expected to crest there at 17 feet, seven feet above flood stage, by Friday afternoon. A 12-year-old boy suffered a head injury after a tree fell on his house.
SOUTH CAROLINA: The fringes of Isabel reached into the state, bringing some brisk winds and occasional bands of rain but little more. State officials closed the emergency operations center in Columbia as the storm moved away.
"In Warren County, N.J., police evacuated 168 residents of a Salem County nursing home when water rose in the Delaware Bay around 3 a.m., state police said. Residents were taken to two local shelters."
Ummm last time I checked, Warren County and Salem County were about 80 miles apart. Isabel must have been one heck of a storm to push them together. I wonder what happened to the people living in Hunterdon, Mercer, Burlington, Camden and Gloucester.
Haven't you heard ? They built an Aquarium in Camden and docked the USS New Jersey along the waterfront. Everything is great there now. Camden is a sparkling gem, the envy of the free world. ;)
Hopefully, the guy who went canoeing in the hurricane didn't have any children.
I'd hate to think that his genes carried on into the next generation.
http://www.hamptonroads.com/stories/nw0919izz.html In Hampton Roads, cities report massive flooding, power outages
By EARL SWIFT, The Virginian-Pilot
© September 19, 2003
Hurricane Isabel elbowed its way past Hampton Roads on Thursday, dealing the region a backhand swipe of wind and water that flooded streets and homes, felled a forest of trees, and plunged hundreds of thousands of tense and hunkered-down residents into the dark.
The slow-moving storm missed a direct hit on the region by miles, its eye crossing into Virginia west of Emporia.
It had reach, however. By late night, the Midtown Tunnel was useless, the Downtown Tunnel was flooded and Portsmouth's nTelos Pavilion was open to the rain. Titanic waves devoured three fishing piers. Thousands of people had fled to public shelters, and police enforced curfews on those who did not.
Isabel caused no local deaths or serious injuries, but it left plenty of bruises.
The hurricane arrived after an almost surreally pleasant though blustery dawn. Sprinklers watered the grassy medians on Norfolk's Martin Luther King Boulevard. Surfers rode strengthening breakers at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront.
But hours before the storm launched its full-on assault, harbingers of the trouble to come were creeping into view across Hampton Roads. Blocked by rising wind and tide, Norfolk's storm sewers spewed water, rather than collecting it. Lawns and parking lots in low-lying Ghent became wind-raked ponds. Power failed in the police operations centers in Norfolk and Suffolk, the dispatchers answering 911 calls on consoles powered by generators.
Swells grew on the Elizabeth River until they exploded in towering sprays against downtown Portsmouth's seawall. The Atlantic turned charcoal gray and climbed, thundering and hissing, up the Oceanfront's beach. Everywhere, wires fell, darkening an ever-greater swath of the region: Fifty thousand homes and businesses were without electricity. Then 150,000. Then 300,000.
It wasn't yet noon.
As the afternoon began, Isabel's muscle became plain. Shingles became missiles. Lawn furniture and trash cans cartwheeled. Streets and sidewalks disappeared beneath rising brown water.
In Norfolk, nearly 1,200 people crowded into city shelters, seeking protection from high winds and water and reported funnel clouds over Norview. The outdoors became so threatening at Isabel's peak that fire officials suspended service, quartering their crews and equipment in safe havens until the worst passed.
``It's a very difficult decision to make,'' acting Fire Chief Edward L. Senter Jr. said. ``We want to respond to all calls for service. But if we want to protect the public, we have to arrive alive.''
Harrison's Fishing Pier, a landmark at the base of Willoughby Spit, was reported in pieces at 3:30 p.m. Not far away, East Ocean View Avenue was partially blocked when a retaining wall at the Bayview Motel, in the 3900 block, collapsed into the thoroughfare.
Not that traffic could use the road, anyway: Soon, it, along with parts of such major routes as Tidewater Drive and Hampton Boulevard, were flooded and impassable. Cars parked in a lot at Olney Road and Boush Street, a crossroads long vulnerable to high water, were afloat by 4 p.m.
The flooding posed threats beyond the obvious. Of the city's 160 sewer pumps, at least 60 lost power. Though city crews planned to restart the pumps with generators after the storm passed, it was possible that sewage might back up and escape into flooded areas, said Agnes Flemming, an environmental health supervisor with the health department.
Windows in several downtown high-rises had blown out, among them City Hall, the Norfolk Southern tower and the SunTrust building, officials said.
Citywide, nine in 10 traffic signals had blinked off, and three hospitals -- Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters, Sentara Norfolk General Hospital and Sentara Leigh Hospital -- were relying on emergency power, according to city officials.
A communications tower on West 39th Street was blown onto a commercial building, officials said. And, as was true throughout the region, a legion of enormous trees that had weathered many a wind succumbed to Isabel; as darkness approached, officials estimated that more than 1,000 trees had fallen.
One toppled onto the three-story East Manor apartments in the 900 block of Brandon Ave., slicing power lines that burned on the ground next to a natural gas meter. Firefighters evacuated the building.
``I heard the tree and it went, Kapow!'' said Mike Mihalecz, who said that when he stepped into the yard, he saw a woman standing near a sparking power line.
``Get away from there!'' he yelled.
``What?'' the woman answered.
``You are going to die,'' he told her. The woman moved away.
A curfew went into effect at 9 p.m.
In Portsmouth, Isabel's winds claimed an expensive prize from the city's waterfront -- the soaring white roof of the nTelos Pavilion at Harbor Center.
Earlier in the week, city officials were assured by the manufacturer that the custom-made Hypolon roof could withstand 110-mph winds. ``At 2 o'clock, it was perfectly fine,'' Richard A. Hartman, the city engineer, said Thursday night. ``I went out at 5, and it had split down the middle.''
Replacing the tentlike canopy, poles and wires could cost $2.5 million, Hartman said. Just the flexible material alone will run about $1 million.
``We'll deal with it next week,'' said City Manager C.W. ``Luke'' McCoy. ``We'll see what happened and who is responsible and deal with it.''
Elsewhere, floodwaters swept through downtown. Water Street actually met its namesake. In one office building, a window had been blown out, exposing blinds that dangled in the wind like tattered ribs. Atop another, only a wood frame remained where the roof once rested.
At the police department's training center on Effingham Street, the roof blew off. Two dozen officers were evacuated to another police station. No one was hurt.
The building also is home to animal control, Portsmouth's community TV operation, and evidence for some upcoming court cases. Some evidence might have been damaged.
All told, 1,293 people went to the city's four shelters. At one point, a piece of wood punched a hole in the Waters Middle School shelter, but no one was reported hurt. Officials considered evacuating the building, but instead repaired the hole.
In Virginia Beach, Danny Roberts, a 30-year-old Beach construction supervisor, watched the tip of the Virginia Beach Fishing Pier at 15th Street vanish. A huge wave curled over it, plucked its pilings from the ocean floor and carried the timber out to sea. Roberts splashed through knee-high foam in driving rain and sand to salvage a plank.
``It's a souvenir,'' he said. ``I fish here all the time, right off that same pier. I'm showing respect for the storm.''
The storm showed no respect in return. By midafternoon, the bayfront Lynnhaven Fishing Pier was in tatters, a waterfront home on Chick's Beach had been dismantled by surf, and the ocean swept over Sandbridge. Dunes had been chewed away, siding peeled. Neighborhoods near the Oceanfront, around Rudee Inlet and straddling Shore Drive slipped under water.
Falling trees quickly isolated the Bay Colony area, while others crashed onto several houses in Little Neck and Kings Grant -- some of the 38 to 40 that Mike Wade, a Fire Department battalion chief, figured had done so as dusk approached.
``People are now trapped in their houses,'' Wade said, ``and they're wanting us to come get them.''
For close to four hours, that didn't happen: At about 3 p.m., Virginia Beach officials, like those in Norfolk, pulled police, fire and rescue personnel off the streets, citing their safety.
By then, the Beach's sewer pump stations were failing. Overloaded or knocked out by power outages, about a quarter of the 400 stations were down by shortly after noon, and officials warned that there could be a sewage-overflow problem.
Rescue personnel returned to the streets at 7 p.m., but the city continued to urge citizens to stay off streets due to concerns over debris and downed power lines.
More than 2,300 people flocked to 10 shelters, of which two -- at Birdneck Elementary and Cox High schools -- lost power early on.
``It's definitely a little harder with the lights off, because it's harder to keep track of the kids,'' said Tricia Holliday, who brought her three children to the shelter at Birdneck Elementary. ``It's harder for them, too, because it's a little scarier.''
In Chesapeake, 1,500 residents had sought shelter in city buildings by nightfall, and four of those shelters relied on generators for power.
Some of the city's key thoroughfares were flooded -- Battlefield Boulevard near the Great Bridge Bridge, Dominion Boulevard, stretches of Mount Pleasant and Cedar roads. The Coast Guard had shut down all waterways by 1:15 p.m., and the city had called in all of its bridge tenders.
As elsewhere, the city pulled its fire rigs off the road during the afternoon, announcing that regular service would not resume until first light Friday. Police urged motorists to stay off the roads, and backed up the request later with an 11 p.m. curfew.
In what proved a problem throughout the region, electricity failed at 148 sewage pumping stations, prompting officials to ask that residents refrain from flushing toilets and washing dishes. Sanitation worries also spurred the city's Health Department to rule that no Chesapeake restaurant -- and there are more than 500 -- may reopen until it is inspected.
In Suffolk, U.S. 58 was shut down, the Whaleyville fire station lost its roof, and a woman reported seeing a tornado on Pitchkettle Road.
Officials received calls from 32 households reporting damage. Wind damage to commercial property was widespread.
A curfew began at 7 p.m., and was in effect through 7 a.m. today. Violators faced a fine of up to $500, a maximum of 60 days in jail or both.
To the west, near Franklin, a truck-driving couple took a mallet and chisel to an oak blocking U.S. 58, and successfully cleared the road after 45 minutes' work.
On the Peninsula, Isabel's effects were much as they were on the Southside. Thousands of residents evacuated low-lying areas and went to shelters, including almost the entire population of Poquoson, near the mouth of the Chesapeake.
Residents of a low-lying community in southern Newport News who had chosen not to leave their homes became stranded and were rescued by boat.
Staff writers Matthew Bowers, Cindy Clayton, Mike Davis, Amy Jeter, Tim McGlone, Linda McNatt, Nicole Morgan, Matthew Roy, Melissa Scott Sinclair, Bill Sizemore, Danielle Roach and Roberta T. Vowell contributed to this report.
Great pics! Sorry about all the damage for you and your neighbors. But I love the pics! Glad you're okay.
