Hurricane Irene New Jersey: One Million Evacuated, Atlantic City in Danger

New Jersey governor Chris Christie announced one million people have been evacuated ahead of Hurricane Irene, but still worried about residents staying behind -- specifically in Atlantic City.

In a Saturday press conference, Christie said that one million New Jersey residents have evacuated their homes, including 90 percent of Cape May Co., but remains worried about stubborn residents refusing to leave their homes.

Christie noted that some Atlantic City residents, predominantly senior citizens, have refused to heed Christie's warnings to leave the area. The governor plans to deploy state police and OEM officials to try to get the citizens to reconsider.

"Allow us to help protect you," Christie told senior citizens.

The state will send buses to the Atlantic City area as officials plan to meet with each remaining citizen individually to try to get everyone in the area to leave. Christie admitted he couldn't arrest anyone that refused to leave, but that it'd be much safer to get out of the area.

Atlantic City is in danger due to its close proximity to both the ocean and a bay. The city, known for its casinos, has a famous boardwalk and pier right on the water that could succumb to flooding from storm surges.

The city voluntarily shut down this weekend for just the third time in 33 years.

Christie is worried that senior citizens near the water in high-rise apartments could be in a lot of danger if the storm hits with winds upwards of 75 mph, as expected.

The state has scattered 1500 National Guard soldiers throughout dangerous regions, hoping to move residents to safe shelters.

The state is planning on using sports arenas and stadiums as shelters, but has already experienced a few hiccups. Last night residents sheltered in the Sun Center in Trenton, the state's capital, were forced to sleep in the arena's seats, as cots had not been prepared yet.

In other shelters throughout the state, some complained of the poor overall conditions of the state.

Yavor Tenev, a native of Bulgaria, who works a summer job in Ocean City, told reporters: "There are a lot of people in there [evacuation shelter]."

Another evacuee complained: "It's freezing in there. There is nowhere to sleep, only places for the elderly and sick."

Christie said that the main point of the shelters is to keep people safe, dry, and keep them fed and hydrated.

On Friday Christie told Jersey residents to "get the hell off the beach," as Irene continued her ascent up the East Coast.

Cape May County and low-lying areas of Atlantic, Monmouth, and Ocean counties have been evacuated.
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Hurricane Irene: Do not underestimate Category 1 storm, FEMA warns

Federal officials are warning residents in Irene's path not to underestimate the storm after it was downgraded to a Category 1 hurricane as it made landfall Saturday morning.

"If you’re in a hurricane, you're in a hurricane," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a Saturday morning briefing at FEMA headquarters. "We anticipate heavy rain, potential flooding and significant power outages throughout the area of the storm, which means all up and down the Eastern Seaboard."

As Irene pounded the North Carolina coast with hurricane-force winds of about 85 miles per hour, FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate warned that the large, slow-moving storm could produce dangerous tornadoes and heavy rain.

"When we talk about category of hurricane, that does not explain all the risk," Fugate said. Category designations indicate the risk from high winds and storm surge. But rainfall and tornadoes are risks that "are not tied to the category of storm," Fugate said.

Tornados "will not be on the ground very long," he said. "But they can still be very devastating."

Also of concern: Conditions at nuclear power plants along the Eastern Seaboard. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Saturday dispatched staff to 11 plants along the East Coast and announced new measures to check that the plants' reactors were protected by backup power systems, NRC spokesman David McIntyre said.

Several inspectors were sent to affected plants and they -- along with a team at NRC headquarters -- were checking safety systems and making plans to closely monitor the facilities during the storm.

As it continues to cross North Carolina's eastern coast, Irene is expected reach Norfolk, Va., by Saturday evening. The National Hurricane Center projects that the storm may weaken slightly but will remain "near hurricane strength" as it approaches New England.

A wind gust at 87 miles per hour was measured at Cape Hatteras, N.C, and Norfolk Naval Air Station recently reported gusts of 63 miles per hour.

President Obama visited FEMA's Washington headquarters Saturday afternoon, after receiving an earlier briefing from Napolitano and Fugate. According to a White House statement on the briefing, Obama "reiterated that we know that this storm's impacts will continue to be felt throughout the weekend and that we still have work ahead of us to support potentially impacted states and communities."
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Subway Closes in New York as Hurricane Nears

New York became a city without one of its trademarks — the nation’s largest subway system — on Saturday as Hurricane Irene charged northward and the city prepared to face powerhouse winds that could drive a wall of water over the beaches in the Rockaways and between the skyscrapers in Lower Manhattan.

The city worked to complete its evacuation of about 370,000 residents in low-lying areas where officials expected flooding to follow the storm, and the transportation system — the subways, along with buses and commuter rail lines — shut down at noon. Police officers sounded the warning, strolling along subway platforms and telling people the next train would be the last. The conductor of a No. 4 train that pulled into the Borough Hall station in Brooklyn at 12:14 p.m. had the same message.

“This is it,” he said, smiling. “You’re just in time.”

Soon subway employees were stretching yellow tape across the entrances to stations to keep people from going down the steps and into an underground world that was suddenly off limits, but not deserted. Transit workers were charged with executing a huge, mostly underground ballet, moving 200 subway trains away from outdoor yards that could flood if the storm delivered the 6 to 12 inches of rain that forecasts called for. The trains were to be parked in underground tunnels across the city, making regular runs impossible.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that mass transit was “unlikely to be back” in service on Monday. The mayor also said that electricity could be knocked out in Lower Manhattan if Consolidated Edison to shut off the power pre-empt the problems that flooding could cause for its cables.

“This is just the beginning,” the mayor said at a morning news conference on Coney Island, where he and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly inspected boats that emergency workers could use in neighborhoods they could not travel through any other way. “This is a life-threatening storm,” he added.

Mr. Bloomberg said the evacuation and the transit shutdown, actions he said had never been ordered before, were proceeding as well as could be expected, with officials going door to door in high-rise housing projects and firefighters driving school buses to help get homebound residents out of low-lying neighborhoods.Phyllis Rhodie, 48, boarded such a bus outside the Redfern Houses in the slender peninsula of the Rockaways. She took along her boyfriend, three children, water, food, some medical supplies — and a case of nerves.

“I’m staying wherever they can put me up,” she said.

And while hundreds of city employees worked in emergency shelters, hundreds of National Guard troops prepared to fan out across the city and Long Island. Scores gathered at the 69th Regiment Armory, on Lexington Avenue at East 26th Street, awaiting their orders.

The storm caused major disruptions long before the first bands of rain swirled by. The three major airports in the New York region stopped clearing flights for landing at noon. Officials said they would remain open for planes that wanted to take off, but most flights had been canceled on Friday, according to Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Supermarkets and hardware stores were jammed on Saturday morning, as they had been the previous day, as New Yorkers who did not have to evacuate stocked up on provisions. They worried that skyscraper windows could shatter and papers and even furniture could be sucked out. They worried that trees in parks could be uprooted and go flying, creating a deadly whirlwind that could do more damage.

They watched as workers stacked sandbags around subway grates near the East River, which is expected to surge as the hurricane passes by. And police trucks with loudspeakers crawled through low-lying neighborhoods, broadcasting warnings to people who had not already left on their own.

The National Weather Service said the storm would churn along the Interstate 95 corridor, keeping up its 14-mile-an-hour pace. That would bring the center to the New York area by Sunday afternoon — probably east of the city on Long Island, forecasters said, although they cautioned that the path could change at any moment. The city had been under a hurricane warning, its first since 1985, since Friday afternoon.
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Steve Jobs' resignation 'end of an era'

Steve Jobs' resignation Wednesday as the CEO of Apple will not disrupt the company's product plans in the short-term, but could dull its ability to dazzle consumers down the road, according to one analyst.

"Apple is fine, and will be," said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research. "Apple knows what it's doing for the next big thing, maybe the next two next big things. They lose the showmanship of Jobs, but [the company's executives] have their marching orders."

Shortly after Jobs submitted his resignation, the Apple board of directors took his advice and named Tim Cook, formerly the chief operating officer, as the new CEO. Also on Wednesday, Jobs was named chairman of the board.

But to some long-time Apple observers, the departure of Jobs is a potential pitfall for the company.

"Apple will be a changed company without Jobs," said Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group. "It will be a very different Apple."

Jobs, who co-founded Apple in 1976 with Steve Wozniak, was forced out of the company in 1985, a year after the launch of the original Macintosh, by then-CEO John Scully and the Apple board. Jobs founded NeXT that same year.

He returned to an Apple in early 1997 when the company acquired NeXT, first as an advisor and then interim CEO. Jobs was named permanent CEO in 2000.

Jobs departure, the analysts agreed, will certainly affect how Apple markets itself and ultimately, how customers view the company.

"Longer term, Apple won't pull off the miracles it did during one of the great leadership careers in business," said Gottheil, citing the iPhone, which Jobs personally launched in 2007, and then the iPad in 2010.

Enderle was more blunt.

"Companies that lose an iconic leader, whether IBM when Thomas Watson Jr. stepped down, or Disney when Walt Disney was gone, or even Microsoft without Bill Gates, firms that went through that transition largely lost the magic," said Enderle.

He also compared Jobs to P.T. Barnum, and traced a line from Barnum to Disney to Jobs, saying each was "magical" in his own way. "Apple with Jobs was magical," Enderle said. "And [without those leaders] you can't do the magic. And Tim Cook isn't magical."

Jobs was best as Apple's creative spark, said Gottheil; Enderle saw it differently.

"It's how he marketed, how he announced products and how he put them in the public eye," said Enderle. "The iPhone wasn't the first smartphone. It was a success because of the way it was packaged and delivered."

While Enderle believes that Apple could show dramatic changes within 24 months -- conceivably before the already-stocked product pipeline is exhausted -- Gottheil was more optimistic about its chances without Jobs.
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East Coast Earhquake (8 23 2011) Magnitude 5.9 - VIRGINIA

Earthquake Details

This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

Magnitude 5.9
Date-Time

Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 17:51:03 UTC
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 01:51:03 PM at epicenter

Location 37.975°N, 77.969°W
Depth 1 km (~0.6 mile) (poorly constrained)
Region VIRGINIA
Distances 45 km (27 miles) E of Charlottesville, Virginia
55 km (34 miles) SW of Fredericksburg, Virginia
64 km (39 miles) NW of RICHMOND, Virginia
82 km (50 miles) NNE of Farmville, Virginia
Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 10.9 km (6.8 miles); depth +/- 7.4 km (4.6 miles)
Parameters NST=390, Nph=390, Dmin=57.9 km, Rmss=1.17 sec, Gp= 47°,
M-type=regional moment magnitude (Mw), Version=6
Source

Magnitude: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Location: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)

Event ID usc0005ild
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