Hurricane Irene hits US coast as New Yorkers flee!

Hurricane Irene is now a Category 1 storm with sustained winds of 85 miles per hour. Photograph: NOAA/Getty Images

Hurricane Irene hit the US coast early Saturday morning with driving rain and winds of 85mph, beginning its journey up the eastern seaboard fromNorth Carolina directly towards New York City and New England. 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.

"The greatest danger to us here is from a storm surge," he said this morning. "There is no evidence that the forecast for that is changing."

Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for 370,000 New Yorkers who live mostly in low-lying areas, and for the first time in history the entire public transport system will be closed down, from noon on Saturday (5pm BST). But with only 70,000 places at the 100 evacuation centres, many residents were asking where they were expected to go if they left their homes.

Some 70,000 vulnerable residents, including hospital patients and those in care homes, have already been evacuated.

Speaking at Coney Island, Brooklyn, one of several Zone A areas where mandatory evacuations have been ordered, Bloomberg said evacuees should leave immediately.

"No matter what the track is, no matter how much it weakened, this is a life-threatening storm here," he said, adding: "Staying behind is dangerous. Staying behind is foolish — it is against the law."

Several New York landmarks were under the evacuation order, including the Battery Park City area. Beaches have been closed for the weekend as have most cultural institutions and sporting events have been cancelled. Construction is stopping throughout the city, and workers at the site of the World Trade Centre were dismantling a crane and securing equipment. The five main New York City area airports were also scheduled to close at noon.

Hurricane-force winds from Irene first arrived on the US at dawn, and the eye passed over the southern tip of the Outer Banks an hour later. At the seaside resort town of Nags Head, in Dare county, where evacuations began on Thursday, winds whipped heavy rain, waves obscured the beach and the surf crashed up against the backs of some houses and hotels.

The storm's outer bands of wind and rain lashed the North Carolina coast, leaving some 200,000 people without power, according to Progress Energy. Authorities further up the coast pleaded with residents to evacuate.

With an estimated 55 million people in its path, authorities have issued hurricane watches and declared states of emergency for Delaware,Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New England, New Jersey, New York and Virginia.

According to the latest advisory from the Hurricane Centre, an "extremely dangerous" storm tide will raise water levels by as much as 5 to 9 ft in the warning areas in North Carolina and as much as 4 to 8ft above ground level up in the warning areas up through Virginia to Cape Cod, including south Chesapeake Bay. Near the coast, the surge will be accompanied by "large, destructive and life threatening waves."

The advisory also warns of rainfall of between 6 to 10 inches, with isolated maximums of 15inches across the affected regions, including eastern New York, causing flash floods.

But not everyone on the coast were heeding the warnings. At the Red Hook Lobster Pound opposite the New York harbour, owner Ralph Gorham had about $26,000 worth of Maine lobster stored in a refrigerator, plus a tank filled with live ones.

"I'm staying," he told the Associated Press. "But if we get, say, a few feet of water in here, it'll be a huge loss."

Bloomberg has previously come under fire after a storm in December when officials were unprepared for 2ft of snow. Subway trains, buses and ambulances got stuck in the snow, some for hours, and streets were impassable for days.

But with Irene approaching, the NY authorities are not taking any chances.

Transit officials said they can't run once sustained winds reach 39mph and they need at least eight hours to move trains and equipment to safety. The subway system won't reopen until at least Monday, after pumps remove water from flooded stations.