Hurricane Irene pummels New York amid fears of flooding
Baku, August 28 (AZERTAC). Winds from Hurricane Irene have begun to hammer New York, bringing torrential rain and the threat of flooding in the financial district.
New York City`s public transport system has been closed and the mayor said it was now too late for people to leave.
At least eight people have died as a result of the storm, which has reached North Carolina, Virginia and Florida.
Irene, with winds of 80mph (130km/h), is due to hit New York at hurricane strength in the morning.
About 1.8 million homes lost power as the 500-mile-wide (800km) storm barreled up the east coast.
Nearly two million people have been evacuated, most from New Jersey.
Some 300,000 people living in low-lying areas of New York City were told to leave in an unprecedented mandatory evacuation.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said those who had not evacuated should now stay put until the storm had past.
"The edge of the hurricane is finally upon us," he told reporters.
"The time for evacuations is over. At this point, if you haven`t evacuated, our suggestion is you stay where you are."
The storm has already battered the Caribbean, including the Turks and Caicos Islands
The fear is of a storm surge affecting New York`s Hudson River, which could potentially inundate the flood defences of Lower Manhattan and cause flooding in the financial district there.
The north-eastern seaboard is the most densely populated corridor in the US, with more than 65 million people living in major cities along the coast from Washington DC in the south to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston further north.
States of emergency have been declared in North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.
Echoes of Katrina
President Barack Obama cut short his holiday to Martha`s Vineyard to co-ordinate efforts to deal with the hurricane.
The BBC`s David Willis in Washington says the president is very keen to avoid any criticism that surrounded the federal government`s response to Hurricane Katrina six years ago.
The president is at pains to point out that all the federal agencies on the ground that need to be deployed have been and that he is looking to be seen to be on top of this and will be over the next few hours and days, our correspondent says.
Irene made landfall at 08:00 on Saturday at Cape Lookout in North Carolina for what is expected to be a 36-hour assault on the US east coast.
Residents hoping to ride out the storm have stocked up on food, water and fuel.
"There`s nothing you can do now but wait. You can hear the wind and it`s scary," Leon Reasor, of Buxton in Maine, told the Associated Press news agency.
"Things are banging against the house. I hope it doesn`t get worse, but I know it will. I just hate hurricanes."
In Washington DC, Sunday`s dedication of the new memorial for Martin Luther King Jr - which President Obama had been expected to attend - has been postponed until at least September.
Supermarkets along the east coast were reportedly running out of supplies as people stock up before the storm arrives.
The Pentagon has loaded 200 trucks with emergency supplies, and 100,000 National Guard troops are on standby.
The American Red Cross said it was preparing dozens of emergency shelters along the east coast.
"We`re going to have damages, we just don`t know how bad," Craig Fugate, head of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, told the Associated Press.
"This is one of the largest populations that will be impacted by one storm at one time."
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