Hurricanes, Storm | featured news

Isaac was on the verge of ballooning into a hurricane Tuesday that could flood the coasts of four states with storm surge and heavy rains on its way to New Orleans, where residents hunkered down behind levees fortified after Katrina struck seven years ago this week.

Stocks are rising after Tropical Storm Irene wound up being less severe than many analysts had anticipated.

Hurricane Irene became a tropical storm Sunday as it made landfall in New York City, sending the sea across the Coney Island boardwalk and rapids running down some low-lying streets in Manhattan and other boroughs.

After pounding the Carolinas Saturday morning, Hurricane Irene churned up the Eastern Seaboard Saturday night with a fury that left at least eight people dead and 1.4 million homes and businesses without power.

I've covered hurricanes from El Salvador to Montauk, on the tip of Long Island, for three decades. There's no question hurricanes are a hassle. What you don't want to learn is that they can also be deadly.

With Hurricane Irene pointed at the nation's most populated city, expected to arrive by late Saturday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants coastal residents to get moving. Now. City officials made the unprecedented decision to shut down the mass transit system starting at noon Saturday and to evacuate by 5 p.m. more than 250,000 New Yorkers who live along the southern coastal rim of the city. That includes residents of Manhattan's Battery Park City, vast parts of Staten Island, Brooklyn's Howard and Manhattan beaches and everyone in the beachfront communities of Rockaway.

Don't play the hero. That's the message from FEMA as officials warn that Hurricane Irene could prompt widespread evacuation orders up and down the East Coast. Residents have been urged to heed those orders, for their safety and the safety of emergency workers.

With Hurricane Irene approaching, evacuations began on a tiny barrier island off North Carolina early Wednesday in a test of whether people in the crosshairs of the first serious hurricane along the East Coast in years would heed orders to get out of the way....

Hurricane Earl made landfall in Canada on Saturday and fizzled after a series of scares along the U.S. East Coast, flooding roads, felling trees and cutting power to tens of thousands in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia.

Hurricane Ida weakened to a Category 1 storm as it moved across the Gulf of Mexico early Monday, forecasters said.