New York has declared a state of emergency as hundreds of thousands of Americans were on Thursday night told to evecuate their homes in anticipation of Hurricane Irene.
Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency across New York. The move allows him to give state resources to cities preparing for the hurricane’s impact.
“I urge New Yorkers to personally prepare for hurricane conditions and to cooperate with emergency officials if needed,” said Mr Cuomo. “By working together, we will all be able to face this storm in a calm and organised manner.”
States of emergency were also declare in North Carolina, Virginia and New Jersey.
Projections suggested that Irene would become the first hurricane to directly strike the US mainland since 2008, when Ike killed more than 50 people and caused about $30 billion (£18 billion) in damage.
“The eastern seaboard is well within the path of this storm,” the director of the US National Hurricane Centre, Bill Read, said on Thursday. “We can see impacts well inland”. The category-three storm, rated as strong as 2005’s Katrina, has battered parts of the Bahamas and left three dead in Haiti and Puerto Rico.
