Irene dwindles but leaves flood, blackouts

Stripped of hurricane designation, Tropical Storm Irene spent the last of its fury Sunday, leaving treacherous flooding and millions without power -- and relief that it was nothing like the nightmare authorities had feared.

Slowly, the East Coast surveyed the damage -- as much as $3 billion by one private estimate -- and worried of danger still lurking: the possibility of rivers and streams swelling with rainwater and overflowing over the next few days.

"This is not over," President Barack Obama said in Washington Sunday.

At least 22 people in eight states, including four people in New York and one in New Jersey, died in the storm.

The Northeast was spared the urban nightmare some had worried about -- crippled infrastructure, stranded people and windows blown out of skyscrapers. But there was still plenty to watch out for. In Rhode Island, which has a geography thick with bays, inlets and shoreline, authorities were worried about coastal flooding at evening high tide.

The entire Northeast has been drenched this summer with what has seemed like relentless rain, saturating the ground and raising the risk of flooding, even after the storm passes altogether.

The storm system knocked out power for 4 1/2 million people along the Eastern Seaboard. Power companies were picking through uprooted trees and reconnecting lines in the South and had restored electricity to hundreds of thousands of people by Sunday afternoon.

"Although the storm is now moving out of New York, we must turn our focus on cleaning up and providing assistance where it is needed," Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Sunday.

State and local governments expect funds from the federal government to ultimately cover much of their storm-damage costs.

Irene weakened to winds of 50 mph as it neared northern New England, well below the 74-mph dividing line between a hurricane and tropical storm. The system was still massive and powerful, forming a figure six that covered the Northeast. It was moving twice as fast as the day before.

Irene unloaded more than a foot of water on North Carolina and spun off tornadoes in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

But the storm appeared to have fallen well short of the doomsday predictions. Across the Eastern Seaboard, at least 2.3 million people were given orders to evacuate, though it was not clear how many obeyed them.

Max Mayfield, former director of the National Hurricane Center, said the storm wasn't just a lot of hype with little fury. He praised authorities, from meteorologists to emergency managers at all levels, for taking the threat seriously.

"They knew they had to get people out early," Mayfield said. "I think absolutely lives were saved."

Irene was the first hurricane to make landfall in the continental United States since 2008, and came almost six years to the day after Katrina ravaged New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005. Experts said it is probable that no other hurricane in American history had threatened as many people.