By COLlive reporters and news wires
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the edge of Hurricane Irene is reaching the city and it’s no longer safe to be outside.
The mayor said late Saturday night that the weather was getting treacherous and anyone in the evacuation area should stay put.
The city ordered about 370,000 residents of low-lying areas to leave (Crown Heights is not among them). It was the first evacuation order for the city.
Irene made landfall in North Carolina earlier in the day and is barreling its way up the coast.
An alert by New York City called for residents to remain indoors for the remainder of the storm.
Please adhere to the following home safety tips in order to protect yourself and your family throughout the storm:
• Move as far away as possible from glass windows. There is a risk that flying debris could break and shatter windows in your home. This risk increases if you live in a high-rise building, particularly on the 10th floor or higher.
• Make sure windows and doors leading to the outside are closed.
• Find an interior room in your home with as few windows as possible and remain there.
• Fill your bathtubs and sinks with water that you can later use for washing and for flushing toilets.
• Candles are a fire hazard and can be knocked over easily. Keep an eye on them, and do not leave them unattended.
• Charge your phones and any other mobile devices that you might need.
• If you have a fireplace in your home, close the damper.
• Turn off any propane tanks.
If your power goes out, call 311 or text 311692 (311NYC). This will help the city identify areas that are without power.
911 should only be used for emergencies. All non-emergency calls should be directed to 311.
VIDEO: Irene’s effects on New York City
VIDEO: Newark Mayor Cory Booker goes door to door
For up-to-date information on the storm, visit nyc.gov/oem and the hurricane zones on the WNYC map.
COLlive UPDATES:
7:44 AM: Shachris at Bais Hamidrash Menachem Nochum at 440 Crown Street had more than a minyan of people.
8:20 AM: Tree branches have fallen around the Crown Heights neighborhood, blocking some roads – motably, the side lane of Eastern Parkway in front of Oholei Torah Educational Institue where learning was set to begin this morning.
9:02 AM: A group of chassanim who have weddings in Israel this week are currently on their way to Toronto where they hope to catch the El Al 30 flight at 1PM landing in Tel Aviv Monday 7AM.
9:52 AM: Rabbi Pesach Schmerling, Director of Chabad Lubavitch of Far Rockaway, in staying with his wife and children at his in-laws in Crown Heights.
He told COLlive.com he sent a notice to his email list on Friday morning recommending they evacuate before Shabbos.
“Mayor Bloomberg says he will announced a mandatory evacuation for Far Rockway on Shabbos so why have issues of chilul shabbos if it can be avoided,” he explained.
Schmerling said his home is a 10 minute walk from the water. “I spoke to someone who stayed there and he said besides for rain there was nothing major.”
10:09 AM: The night-long heavy rain has just stopped. The main shul in 770 Eastern Parkway is full as every weekday, with minyanim beginning and ending on schedule.
11:54 PM: The National Hurricane Center said that the tropical storm’s maximum sustained winds had decreased to about 60 mph, well below the 74 mph dividing line between a hurricane and tropical storm.
The system was still massive and powerful, forming a figure six that covered the Northeast. It was moving twice as fast as the day before.
As a hurricane, Irene had already killed 14 people and left 4 million homes and businesses without power. It unloaded more than a foot of water on North Carolina and spun off tornadoes in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.
1:57 PM: Craig Fugate, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) urged residents of the U.S. East Coast to “stay inside, stay safe,” adding that “we still will have trees coming down, heavy rain, strong winds.”
“It’s critical to stay off the roads” because of downed power lines, Fugate said on NBC. The damage from the hurricane has “not been as great as we had feared,” though flooding along the East Coast remains a danger.
I guess it was not so serious; but a general precaution. Also you can see that a lot of the pictures were taken from indoors and some were emailed from others. p.s. In Israel, once by a ‘moment of silence for WWII, a frum lady continued to go about taking out the garbage. She made a cheshbon, ‘I am raising a frum family; that is the greatest things to do for the war (the moment of silence is the idea of people who are not). Just then, a photographer [not frum] saw her and snapped! Nu, what was he thinking;… Read more »
U were the only one with a sensible comment the rest were a waste of time!
corey booker is one I’m watching. I love to see people who seem to be genuine. He really sounds great.
there was every indication that this was going to be disastrous. Hashem spared us big time. thank you Hashem for this chesed, thank you sooooo much.
All expert meteorologists were saying this was serious….even ones that weren’t paid to say it – they went out of their way to inform ppl – this hurricane was very real.
we were very fortunate indeed.
Basement is flooded! Count ur b,essings. And don’t belittle see precautions. A guy in my dads. Karate class was niftier unfortunately because of drowned power lines. Stay safe!!
listen BH it wasnt bad in ch… people were killed in north carolina…. maybe things werent as bad becasue people actually prepared and took care of dangerousthings that could have gone flying etc. If your basement/house isnt flooded be thankful for that because some people have a lot to deal with. you are one of the lucky ones
BS:D you changed the headline-cute
sort of like murphy’s law.. when you are prepared for a disaster nothing major happens… its the unexpected threats that you had no warning about whatsoever that tend to wipe things out…
know that flooding is dangerous – don’t walk in flood waters – more people get hurt after storms because they don’t know the dangers. You can’t see downed power lines or whatever is in that water so stay out of it! Make sure your kids know that right now jumping in puddles (flood waters) is not safe.
Oh. and BTW glad that CH wasn’t hit too badly but yes – a fallen tree limb as big as some of those in the pictures could hurt somebody pretty badly so staying indoors during the storm isn’t “scardy” it’s smart!
y do u have video footage from cnn? cant be trusted
Nyc is now the scaredy cat city we shut down over nothing a little rain & not much else.You can pout all you want Shutting the subways access to Manhattan etc. what’s next? I guess from now on !”of snow or a mere threat of anything more than a drizzle or showers shuts everything down?
hurricane?! maybe in north carolina nothing happened here other then a few nocked over street cones, some broken umbrellas, lots of fallen leaves and even a few broken branches! (wow!!!) p.s. all the pics of flooding are from out of ch there is hardly any water in this nighberhood
the flooding looks so kool hop everyone is ok
BS:D ” Its here ” where ?
And pople say it rains in Manchester!
You say it is not safe to be out, so why are YOU guys out taking pics!!!
This storm has been all hype. We had much more rain 2 weeks ago, and the winds are nothing much to speak of either.
be safe and hope it is not as bad as you were told it would be!from a concerned (i have children in NY) Londoner