Barry Makes Landfall

Dear Commons Community,

With huge amounts of rainfall, tropical storm Barry strengthened into a hurricane yesterday as it moved slowly toward shore, knocking out power on the Gulf Coast and dumping heavy rains that could last for days in Louisiana and other gulf coast states.  More than 70,000 customers were without power, including 66,830 in Louisiana and 3,140 in Mississippi.

The Coast Guard rescued more than a dozen people from the Isle de Jean Charles, south of New Orleans, where water had risen so high that some residents were clinging to rooftops. But in New Orleans, residents and tourists wandered calmly through mostly empty streets under a light rain.  Officials were confident that New Orleans’ levees would hold firm. The barriers range in height from about 20 feet to 25 feet.

Officials predicted Barry would make landfall near Morgan City, west of New Orleans. The small town had an overnight curfew that expired Saturday morning, after on-and-off rain and power outages. People used cellphones to see in the dark, and opened doors and windows to let the warm, sticky tropical air circulate.

Barry had strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane by Saturday morning, with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph), the National Hurricane Center said.

Meanwhile in Manhattan, a power outage crippled the tourist-filled heart just as Saturday night Broadway shows were set to go on, sending theater-goers spilling into the streets, knocking out Times Square’s towering electronic screens and bringing subway lines to a near halt.

The New York City Fire Department said a transformer fire at West 64th Street and West End Avenue affected hundreds of thousands of customers along a 30-block stretch from Times Square to about 72nd Street and Broadway.

The fire started just before 7 p.m. Saturday, authorities said.

Power went out early Saturday evening at much of Rockefeller Center, reaching the Upper West Side and knocking out traffic lights.  The outage came exactly on the anniversary of the 1977 New York City outage that left most of the city without power.

I was in Manhattan at Hunter College yesterday to give a talk to a new cohort of doctoral students. Thankfully, I was on my way home via Metro North by 2:30 pm.

Tony

A Dark Manhattan Yesterday

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