Isabel legacy of contaminated water and electricity shortages

HURRICANE Isabel’s flight across the mid-Atlantic was swift, but its devastation will take time to overcome.

Nearly two million homes and businesses were still without power yesterday, debris clogged streets, and flooding left drinking water contaminated.

Long lines were forming yesterday in places where there was news of ice or water or hot showers available. Families began emptying refrigerators and freezers filled with spoiled food, and many faced the prospect of several days without a home-cooked meal.

Tony and Barbara Flores ventured into Richmond and found a restaurant open for breakfast. Their daughter had advised them to fill their bathtub with fresh water before the storm, but all the food in the refrigerator was ruined.

“Food is the bigger problem,” Mrs Flores said as she nudged her way through the line of fellow storm refugees on Sunday.

Federal officials warned of new flooding as runoff from the storm pours into streams.

“It’s going to be quite unsafe for some time to come, until we manage to finish cleaning it up,” National Park Service spokesman William Justice said after the Potomac River overran its banks.

Power companies reported large gains in the arduous task or restoring service to about six million homes and businesses from North Carolina’s Outer Banks north to New York, but nearly two million were still in darkness.

At least 30 deaths had been blamed on the storm, 17 of them in Virginia. North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware were declared federal disaster areas.

Virginia was hit hardest by the loss of electricity. The state’s dominant provider, Dominion Virginia Power, said it had restored service to about 800,000 homes and business by Saturday night, but still had nearly 940,000 customers without power.

“It will be multiple days,” Irene Cimino, a spokeswoman for Virginia Dominion Power, said on Sunday. “We have an enormous task involved here. Parts of our distribution system have to be rebuilt.”

Flooding contaminated water supplies in many areas, forcing people to boil and treat it or risk bacterial infections.

Most people were taking the worst power outage in Virginia history well, said Jimmy Staton, a Dominion Virginia Power vice president.

“Generally people can see, if they walk around their neighbourhood, they understand the level of devastation,” he said.

The utility had restored service to at least 24 of 29 affected hospitals, and about three-quarters of the water pumping stations that were down, Staton said.