Hurricane Irene sped toward a shuttered New York City yesterday with 120kph winds, killing nine people and knocking out power to 3 million homes as the massive storm drenched the US east coast.
Irene had an enormous wingspan — 805km wide — and threatened 65 million people on the east coast, estimated to be the largest number of Americans ever affected by a single storm. It unloaded 30cm of rain on southern states before reaching New Jersey.
New York turned eerily quiet as the city hunkered down, crippled after the entire transit system was shut down because of weather for the first time in history. All the city’s airports were closed, with more than 9,000 flights canceled.
“The time for evacuation is over. Everyone should now go inside and stay inside,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said late on Saturday.
With steady, heavy rain falling in the US’ largest city, there was nothing left to do but wait. There were sandbags on Wall Street, tarps over subway grates and plywood on windows — at least ones low enough to reach.
About 370,000 people had been ordered to move to safer ground, although great numbers appeared to have stayed put.
The National Hurricane Center said early yesterday that Irene was speeding up as it moved to the north-northeast at a speed of 40kph. It still had maximum sustained winds of 120kph with the hurricane’s eye only about 64km south-southwest of New York City.
Forecasters said there was a chance a storm surge on the fringes of lower Manhattan could send seawater streaming into the maze of underground vaults that hold the city’s cables and pipes, knocking out power to thousands and crippling the nation’s financial capital.
Officials feared water lapping at Wall Street, the site of the former World Trade Center and the luxury high-rise apartments of Battery Park City.
Hours before the storm’s center reached New York, a 93kph wind gust hit John F. Kennedy International Airport and a storm surge of more than 1m struck New York Harbor.
Battery Park City in lower Manhattan was virtually deserted as rain and gusty winds pummeled streets and whipped trees. Officials were bracing for a storm surge of up to 1m that could flood or submerge the promenade along the Hudson River.
A nuclear reactor at Maryland’s Calvert Cliffs went offline automatically when winds knocked off a large piece of aluminum siding late on Saturday night. Constellation Energy Nuclear Group said the facility and all employees were safe.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)