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Irene Races Towards Atlantic City; Death Toll Rises to Five

Twelve hours after Hurricane Irene made landfall in North Carolina on Saturday, heavy winds, rains and thunderstorms pummeled the Jersey shore. And the Category 1 storm is still 12 hours away from the Garden State.

By Jeff Schwachter
Add Comment Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Aug. 27, 2011

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ATLANTIC CITY — Just over 12 hours after Hurricane Irene made landfall in Cape Lookout, North Carolina, heavy winds, rain and thunderstorms continue to pummel the Jersey shore.

 
As of 8:15pm, Hurricane Irene has caused five deaths and several injuries, according to reports, as fallen trees, and other storm-related incidents have occurred in North Carolina and Virginia. 
 
There is currently a tornado watch in the southern Jersey shore area. 
 
Atlantic City-Ocean City area residents who have not evacuated the state-ordered mandatory evacuation areas are hunkering down, some behind plywood-covered windows and doors.
 
Reportedly, Ocean City is nearly a ghost town, with the evacuation of Cape May County a successful effort with only about 10,000 remaining in the state's southernmost county. 
 
As thousands of residents and tourists evacuated the Jersey shore to other parts of New Jersey or to nearby states such as Pennsylvania, shelters have been set up across the affected areas for those evacuees who have nowhere else to go.
 
As Irene makes its way up the East Coast, one million are without power in the Northeast. Experts predict that number will double.
 
Atlantic City is under a mandatory evacuation order, and all 11 Atlantic City casinos are closed — although the Atlantic City Race Course, in nearby Mays Landing, was open today, taking simulcast bets on the big race in Saratoga — but that hasn't stopped about 600 residents of a high-rise in the resort.
 
The 600 Atlantic City residents made national headlines all day Saturday as they refused to leave their homes.
 
Gov. Chris Christie addressed the residents on TV but acknowledged that if residents didn't heed the order, he cannot make them. 
 
About 24 hours after the Governor's office sent out a media alert with the headline "Get the Hell Off the Beaches!" — which all but mainly a few daring surfers had done by Saturday afternoon — Christie was visiting a shelter set up at Rutgers in New Brunswick.
 
Earlier in the day he addressed those who had not yet evacuated on TV, by saying that even though the storm had been downgraded it still poses a serious threat to the Jersey shore and its people. 
 
Time, he said, was running out.
 
"If you stay where you are, you’re putting yourself in danger as well as your loved ones," said Christie.
 
Weather experts are saying that although Irene has been downgraded, the Jersey shore area can expect high tides, a possible tornado, the New Moon, saturated land in the region and the massive size and duration of the storm to cause severe flooding.
 
By the time Irene hits the Garden State, at about 7am Sunday morning, there will have already been a substantial amount of rainfall in the Atlantic City area, thus making the area — which is already prone to flooding in parts, even during normal rainstorms — extremely vulnerable in terms of serious flooding along the shoreline Sunday.
 
Experts predict that on Sunday the ocean's already high and rough waves along the Jersey coast will spill over boardwalks up and down the Shore.
 
 
See live photo feed below. Send your pics to photo@acweekly.com)
 


 
Click here for a live Atlantic City Web Cam - from the ACUA Wastewater Treatment Plant, Atlantic City, New Jersey
 
Click here for photos of Gov. Christie visiting Rutgers shelter.
 
 

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