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Tropical Storm Hanna Soaks East Coast

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The New York Times

Published: September 7, 2008

NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. - With a fearsome Hurricane Ike not far in its wake, Tropical Storm Hanna cruised ashore here early Saturday, bringing soaking rains and near-hurricane force winds to the Carolina coast but doing little immediate damage before pivoting quickly up the Eastern Seaboard.

Officials in South Carolina and North Carolina said they had received no reports of deaths or injuries as of midday Saturday. Both states experienced isolated flooding, downed trees and beach erosion. Some 53,000 customers had power failures in North Carolina, many of them in inland areas where rain was heaviest, and 1,300 lost electricity in South Carolina. About 2,000 people spent the night in shelters in the two states.

"It's been an awning here, a satellite dish there," said Kelly L. Brosky, a spokeswoman for Horry County, which includes North Myrtle Beach. "Given that inland areas got 5 to 6 inches of rain, the flooding really hasn't been anything major."

The storm reached the Washington metropolitan area by midday, producing torrential rains. In Virginia, about 55,000 people were left without electricity as felled trees tore down power lines. Flash floods and accidents caused authorities to close more than 100 roads, and about 100 people were in shelters in the southeastern part of the state.

In Washington, about 500 homes and businesses were left without power, but no flash floods were reported.

Though not debilitating, the storm extended a two-week assault by tropical weather systems on the coastal South that began with Tropical Storm Fay's soggy trek through Florida and continued with Hurricane Gustav's landfall in Louisiana. The region had seen a relative respite since 2005, the year of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Tropical Storm Hanna, which caused more than 100 deaths as it passed through Haiti, made landfall along the North Carolina-South Carolina border at 3:20 a.m. The National Hurricane Center measured its sustained winds at 70 mph, just short of the 74 mph needed to qualify as a hurricane.

After sunrise Saturday, winds had dropped to 50 mph. Tropical storm warnings and watches stretched from North Carolina to Massachusetts, and the storm promised to dampen the weekend on much of the seaboard.

The National Weather Service issued a tropical storm warning for Manhattan, with the storm expected to curve into Long Island by Saturday evening and reach eastern Long Island Sound after midnight. As much as 6 inches of rain was expected in the New York City area by evening, and flood watches were in effect for nearly the entire tri-state area - New York, New Jersey and Connecticut - through this morning, as forecasters expected up to 12 hours of sustained rainfall.
Tropical Storm Hanna moved quickly, at 20 mph, not lingering long enough to drop the kind of rain typically required for heavy flooding. North Carolina officials expected up to 8 inches in some areas before the storm passed into Virginia, but said flooding had been minor. Much of the region has been suffering from drought, making the 3 to 6 inches that fell in some areas welcome.

Officials in the Carolinas had encouraged evacuations of low-lying coastal areas, but most residents and business owners regarded the storm casually.

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