Waves crash into Kitty Hawk pier as Hurricane Irene strikes the Outer Banks in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
What of those who are experiencing Irene right now?
"There's nothing you can do now but wait. You can hear the wind and it's scary," said Leon Reasor, who rode out the storm in the Outer Banks town of Buxton, and spoke to the Associated Press. "Things are banging against the house. I hope it doesn't get worse, but I know it will. I just hate hurricanes."
Susan Kinchen, who arrived at a shelter at a North Carolina high school with her daughter and five-month-old granddaughter, said she felt unsafe in their trailer. Kinchen, from Louisiana, said she was reminded of how Hurricane Katrina peeled the roof of her trailer there almost exactly six years ago, in 2005. "I'm not taking any chances," she said.
Charlie Koetzle, 55, who has lived in Ocean City, Maryland, for a decade, came to the boardwalk in swim trunks and flip-flops to look at the sea. While his neighbours and almost everyone else had evacuated, Koetzle said he told authorities he wasn't leaving. To ride out the storm, he had stocked up with soda, roast beef, peanut butter, tuna, nine packs of cigarettes and a detective novel. Of the storm, he said: "I always wanted to see one."
One of the most significant lines to come out of New Yorkmayor Michael Bloomberg's news conference earlier (see 9.36am ET) was his suggestion that power would be cut pre-emptively to Lower Manhattan (from where I am blogging). Fortunately, Consolidated Edison, the power company, has said it has no such plans.
According to the New York Times, Coned said that if its most vulnerable subsations are flooded, then power may be cut, affecting mostly the financial district in an area bordered by the Brooklyn Bridge to the north, Broadway to the west, and the East River.
That puts the Guardian live blog in the clear – but only just. I am just a few steps away from Broadway and the Brooklyn Bridge.
President Obama has been visiting the Fema national response coordination center in Washington, where around 50 staff are working on the federal response. He told staff: "This is obviously going to be a touch and go."
We've just published our latest news story on Irene. My colleague Karen McVeigh reports:
More than 2 million people in low-lying and coastal areas were told to evacuate and millions more were preparing for days of hurricane-force winds, rain, power cuts and disruption in its wake.When it made landfall at Cape Lookout on North Carolina's Outer Banks, Irene was weaker than had been forecast. The National Hurricane Centre in Miami downgraded the storm from a category 2 to a category 1 overnight, as it had weakened from 100mph winds.It forecast further weakening of the storm over the next 24 hours, but warned winds would be at near-hurricane speeds and the storm would remain large and powerful as it headed toward the mid-Atlantic coast on Saturday night and southern New England on Sunday."The hazards are still the same," NHC hurricane specialist Mike Brennan said. "The emphasis for this storm is on its size and duration, not necessarily how strong the strongest winds are."In New York City, where Irene is expected to arrive on Sunday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a strongly worded warning that the hurricane remained dangerous despite the weakening wind speeds.
As Irene tracks northeast, strong>transport systems are shutting down.
In Virginia, authorities have closed the Midtown tunnel and the Hampton Roads bridge-tunnel.
The Maryland Transit Administration is suspending all services tonight. evening. Light rail services will stop operating at 6pm, and the bus and subway service will shut at 9pm.
Transit systems in New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia are already closed.
The Ronald Reagan Washington national airport and Washington Dulles international airport are still open, but most flights are cancelled. These airports may close later. Philadelphia airport will clsoe at 6pm. Also closing today are JFK and LaGuardia in New York, Newark in New Jersey, plus Stewart and Teterboro.
Tomorrow, airports in White Plains, Boston, Portland, Hartford, Manchester, and even Albany in upstate New York are epxected to close.
Already today, according to CNN, 3,367 flights have been cancelled and a further 4,970 have been pulled from the schedules tomorrow.
During hurricanes, it is compulsory for TV news networks to make reporters deliver pieces-to-camera in the most rain-lashed areas.
CNN is winning the prize for "best reporter blow-away".
My colleague Suzanne Goldenberg was monitoring the Fema briefing. Here's her report:
Irene's winds may have maxed out as a category one storm, but people on the east coast are still at risk of flash floods and tornados, officials warned this morning. "I would not advise people to focus too much on category one, two or three. If you are in a hurricane, you are in a hurricane," Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, told reporters at an 11am update.Irene is not expected to strengthen as it makes its way up the coast, Bill Read, the director of the national hurricane center, said. But the sheer size of the storm still means its carries heavy risks.The national weather center has already received its first reports of tornado, and Read warned there could be others on the outer bands of the storm. The biggest risk, however, is flooding, with five to ten inches of rainfall expected over the weekend after an exceptionally wet August on much of the east coast.Even with Irene's diminished wind strength, heavy rains could cause already swollen rivers to burst their banks, putting people inland at risk of flash floods. "When you talk about the category of hurricane that does not explain all the risk" Craig Fugate, the Fema director, told the briefing.Low-lying resorts, such as Delaware's Rehoboth and Bethany Beach, are at a high risk of storm surges greater than 4ft, Read said. But as an update from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency pointed out on Saturday morning such floods historically are far more dangerous than high winds.The agency said more than 60% of hurricane deaths from 1970-1999 occurred inland, and were caused by freshwater flooding.
I've just spoken to someone who was due to fly from Newark, New Jersey to London on Monday morning with Virgin Atlantic. His flight has been cancelled and the earliest Virgin can rebook him is next Sunday. Flights out of JFK are even busier, according to the Virgin operator. Many people's plans are going to be distrupted for days to come, it seems.
Here in Lower Manhattan, the streets are very quiet. Many shops – even those not in the evacuation zone – are closed. Normally clogged streets are near-deserted, and the tunnels connecting Manhattan with New Jersey and Brooklyn are running unusually freely.
People wait in line to buy groceries next to empty shelves in a Manhattan grocery store on August 27, 2011 in New York City. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images
The few stores that remain open have been cleared of essentials.
Airlines have cancelled a significant number of flights. United/Continental have struck out 2,300 departures, Delta 1,300, JetBlue have cancelled 900 services. In addition, BA and Virgin Atlantic have started cancelling flights to and from New York and Newark through the weekend and into Monday.
MSNBC is reporting the first death related to Hurricane Irene: a man killed by a falling tree branch outside his home in North Carolinsa, says Suzanne Goldenberg.
My colleague Paul Harris has been looking into the reasons why the New York authorities are so concerned about storm surges even though the wind speed forecasts have been downgraded. He writes:
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has warned New Yorkers that the main problem faced by the city is not Hurricane Irene's winds but flooding caused by its storm surge. Christopher Vaccaro, director of public affairs at the National Weather Service, explained that the science behind a surge is pretty straightforward.Irene is packing such high winds that they basically push a body of water up in front of it, driving it on land and effectively raising the level of the sea ahead of the storm. "The pressure is literally driving a surge of water that rushes inland," Vaccaro said. It is that surge which can overtop sea defences and lead to widespread flooding which will be worsened in some spots by high levels of rainfall on saturated ground.There is another issue too. The hurricane is expected to make landfall in the New York area some time on Sunday morning and could coincide with high tide which should be around 8am, Vaccaro explained. Finally, due to the natural movements of the moon which controls the tides, tomorrow's high tide is expected to be an unusually high "spring tide". All of which will raise the level of the sea even higher and further worsen the impact of the expected storm surge.New York is especially susceptible to this threat for two reasons. Firstly, there is simply a lot of low-lying land in the city that is vulnerable to flooding by such unusual conditions. Secondly, it is an urban area with things like subway stations built underground which would easily flood if and when sea water overtops the coastal defences. All of which makes the flooding of Irene more of a threat than the winds. "There is coastal flooding, a storm surge and a high tide. That is a very serious situation," said Vaccaro.
So Stuart Millar's O-grade in physics stood him in good stead.
Bill Read, the director of the national hurricane center, speaking at the Fema news briefing, is warning of 4ft to 8ft storm surges up the eastern coastline including Delaware, New Jersey, New York Long Island, and up to New England.
The homeland security secretary Janet Napolitino is speaking at a Fema news conference now. She is urging people to take Hurricane Irene seriously, warning of heavy rain, flooding and power outages "all up and down the eastern seaboard".
The National Hurricane Center has just released a new update, warning of storm surges of between 5ft and 9ft above ground level in North Carolina, with sustained 85mph winds and tornadoes.
Here's a summary as we approach mid-morning on the east coast of the United States.
• Hurricane Irene has made landfall at Cape Lookout in North Carolina. That makes it the first hurricane to hit the shores of mainland US since 2008. It has been downgraded to a category one hurricane – the lowest in the five-point hurricane scale. Winds of around 85mph are lashing the North Carolina coast, with reports of tornadoes.
• Preparations are continuing in the major cities, including Washington and New York. The mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, said in a press briefing at Coney Island today that the authorities are now expecting winds between 55mph and 70mph to hit the city tomorrow, down from earlier forecasts of more than 100mph. But he said the real threat was from storm-surge flooding. He warned that electricity and gas may be turned off as a precaution. The city streets are quiet, many shops are closed in Lower Manhattan and the subway system is preparing to shut down from noon.
• More than 250,000 people are without power in North Carolina.There have been no reports of any injuries or deaths, but the coastguard in Virginia has been called out on a sea rescue mission. There are reports of localised flooding and downed trees.
• President Obama has declared states of emergency in New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, North Carolina, Connecticut, Virginia, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. This means federal agencies are mandated to mount emergency responses.
My colleague Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington has sobering news. She writes:
For those who think everybody must have got the message by now to stay out of the storm – given the endless warnings from officials – consider this: the coastguard was out trying to rescue a small sail boat off the coast of Virginia this morning. It sounds like they are having difficulty getting to the boat as well, at least at first.Coastguard spokesman John Miller says the sailboat, with two people on board, is about 400ft off the beach. They can't get a small boat or an aircraft to get near it, and are using line-throwing gun to try to pull the people in.
So, why are the New York City authorities so worried about Irene given that the wind speed forecast has been downgraded to 55-70mph? My colleague Stuart Millar has this on Twitter:
Storm surge is the biggest threat to NYC because Irene covers such huge area, so is pushing a lot of water in front of it. Plus it coincides with extremely high tides due this weekend caused by the new moon – known as astronomical high tides.
Stuart, you should know, has an 'A' at O-grade physics (there's no direct American equivalent, but O-grades were Scottish high school qualifications gained at age 16). We're pitching for someone with better scientific credentials, but I'm going with this for now. Can anyone elaborate? @MatthewWells on Twitter or in the comments below.
Important pet news from the New York city council: "If you are taking your pet to a shelter please bring a copy of the pet's vaccination and medical records; a leash and muzzle; carrier; and food."
This is not as stupid as it may seem. There are an estimated 500,000 dogs in New York City, only 20% of which are licensed.
My colleague Paul Harris was also watching Bloomberg's press conference. He was in Coney Island with police commissioner Ray Kelly, touring preparations for Irene. He warned that city transport is shutting at mid-day and thus those who have to evacuate need to do it in the next few hours. "You have to start right now. We've had that lots of people are leaving and that's great," he said.
Paul also noted that Bloomberg is now focusing on the storm surge rather than the winds. "You can't prepare for the best case, you have to prepare for the worst case," Bloomberg said.
Bloomberg also had a clear message for one specific and surprisingly numerous breed of New Yorker: the city's surfers. He warned them not to try and surf waves generated by Irene off the beaches of Long Island. "We don't want to put our first responders lives in danger to try and save you," he said.
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