Irene batters New York, raising fears of flooding
BBC News - Irene batters New York, raising fears of flooding
Irene has already hit North Carolina and Virginia
The most ferocious storm to hit the US East Coast for years is centred on New York City, threatening major floods.
Torrential rain is pounding the city, and there are fears a predicted surge of up to 8ft (2.4m) of water could breach flood defences in Manhattan.
Tropical Storm Irene - downgraded from a hurricane - is packing winds up to 65mph (100km/h) and has been blamed for at least nine deaths in the US.
Irene has barrelled up the coast since making landfall on Saturday.
New York City's public transport system has been closed and the mayor said it was now too late for people to leave.
Irene came ashore for a second time earlier on Sunday, roaring across New Jersey.
The storm has weakened from a category-three hurricane when it swept through the Caribbean last week to a tropical storm, but it is still expected to be destructive.
About four-and-a-half million people were left without power as the 500-mile-wide (800km) storm blew in.
The same number have moved out of the danger zone, most of them from New Jersey.
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At the scene
image of Laura Trevelyan Laura Trevelyan BBC News, Battery Park City, New York
New Yorkers are feeling the full force of now Tropical Storm Irene right at this minute. I am standing knee deep in water on the southern tip of lower Manhattan, right behind me is the New York harbour. The storm surge looks about five feet - so clearly there is a widespread risk of flooding throughout New York City. There has already been flooding in Queens and the question is what damage will that flooding do?
Will it be bad enough to affect the city's underground vaults, the network of subways, of cables that power New York City? You can see why the mayor made the New York subway system shut down, because the subway system is right below the ground level in New York.
The one positive thing is that the tide is beginning to go out now, so that means that the water level will drop by about five feet - so that could offset the storm surge and this may be about as bad as it gets. But the heavy rains will continue and with those continuing rains, comes the risk of flooding. So it is clear why 370,000 people in low-lying areas of the city were ordered to evacuate because who wants to take chances when the water rises to the extent that it has now?
At 09:00 (13:00 GMT) the centre of the hurricane moved over New York City, the National Hurricane Center reported.
The BBC's Laura Trevelyan, in New York's Battery Park, says the city is feeling the full force of the storm, whose arrival coincided with a high tide.
Hours earlier it had come came ashore in New Jersey, about 100 miles to the south, where state Governor Chris Christie said he expected the cost of repairing damage to be "in the billions of dollars, if not in the tens of billions of dollars".
Some 370,000 people living in low-lying areas of New York City had been told to leave, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned those who remained behind to stay put.
Our correspondent said a feared storm surge affecting New York's Hudson River, was about five feet high.
Ocean water has streamed into streets in New York's Queens district, while streets in Brooklyn's Coney Island were also under water, the Associated Press news agency reported.
In Manhattan, water from New York Harbour lapped onto pavements in Battery Park, and about 1ft of water washed over the wall of the marina in front of the New York Mercantile Exchange in lower Manhattan, AP said.
On Wall Street, sandbags were placed around subway grates, while construction work has been halted across the city.
Irene has dumped more than 1ft (30cm) of rain on North Carolina and Virginia, and there were reports of storm surges of nearly 10ft.
The north-eastern seaboard is the most densely populated corridor in the US. More than 65 million people live in major cities from Washington DC in the south to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston further north.
Map 2, 28 August
Patricia Billinger of the American Red Cross told the BBC about 27,000 people had taken refuge in shelters along the coast, with 8,000 in New York itself.
States of emergency have been declared in North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. New York's John F Kennedy and LaGuardia airports, and Newark in New Jersey, have shut, with the cancellation of at least 8,000 flights.
The storm has been blamed for the deaths of two children, as well as seven other people killed by falling trees, road accidents and high waves, in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Florida.
A nuclear reactor in Maryland automatically went offline after a large piece of aluminium blown down by high winds came into contact with the plant's main transformer, prompting a low-level emergency.
Echoes of Katrina
President Barack Obama cut short his holiday to Martha's Vineyard to co-ordinate efforts to deal with the storm.
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A couple walks through Times Square as Hurricane Irene arrives in New York
City streets along the eastern seaboard are all but deserted
* In pictures: Irene strikes US
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 necessary federal agencies have been deployed on the ground, our correspondent says, and Mr Obama is looking to be seen to be on top of this over the next few hours and days.
The Pentagon has loaded 200 trucks with emergency supplies, and 100,000 National Guard troops are on standby.
Irene first 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.
"Thursday late night, I bought bottles of water after New Jersey declared a state of emergency. They were the last bottles of water on the shelves," Jay, from Manhattan, told the BBC.
"[There are] very heavy wind gusts. I live on the 33rd floor so gusts are powerful up here. The rain is coming down consistently hard," he said.
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#Irene Twitter updates
* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: @JustinNOAA
* Federal Emergency Management Agency: @CraigatFEMA
* National Hurricane Center: @NHC_Atlantic
* Weather Underground: @wunderground
* Breaking News Irene: @breakingirene
* NY Governor Cuomo: @NYGovCuomo
* NC Governor Perdue: @ncgovoffice
* Wilmington Star News, NC: @StarNewsOnline
"Last time I checked from my window, I only saw police cars on West 34th Street, which never happens. It's one of the busiest streets in Manhattan 24/7."
Supermarkets along the east coast were reportedly running out of supplies before the storm arrived.
"This is my first time witnessing anything like this," student Ryan Narcisse of Roselle, New Jersey, told the BBC. "The street was blanketed with a sheet of water...
"It is tense. It's amazing. The wind. We have to worry about power lines going down, which is a major issue. The New Jersey governor has 6,000 electricians ready to fix power lines but I don't think that's going to be enough given the damage that is bound to happen after the storm... We are not used to this at all on the East Coast."
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