New York Braces For Hurricane Irene (PHOTOS)

New Yorkers are battening the hatches as Hurricane Irene bounds up the East Coast.

Mayor Bloomberg Friday ordered a mandatory evacuation for all residents of low-lying Zone A areas, and Far Rockaways, and the transit authority shut down all operations at noon Saturday. In advance of the storm, stores boarded up, lobbies gathered sand bags, volunteers organized evacuation centers, and residents stocked up on water, food (and plenty of alcohol).

The storm is expected to hit the city in earnest late Saturday or early Sunday, and New Yorkers were advised to keep off the roads and streets and stay indoors. Some eerie images have come out of this oncoming storm, as massive commuter sections like Grand Central are left completely desolate, and cabs roll down empty, wet streets.

LOOK to see how New Yorkers ready themselves for such an unprecedented storm:

Comments

[Tulka2]

08:31 PM on 08/28/2011

First picture here is of a venerable American Elm down.  Very sad.  The neighborhood will miss it.  What about Central Park?  How did the Elm Alley stand up to Irene?   Prayer wheel spinning.

[mmpolom24]

04:33 PM on 08/28/2011

Those people sandbagging have obviously never been through a real flood!

[Mike D Hylton]

01:24 PM on 08/28/2011

Hurricane Irene will now be known as,, AND THIS IS MINE,,,, BAMA'S FOLLY,,, It was his big chance to be the hero to be the man, to show how he could handle the Monster Storm better than Bush did his,,, Darn storm let him down,, darn the luck

[Jlbeaverton]

03:43 PM on 08/28/2011

Really.? You would have rathered there was no preemptive planning just in case this storm was disastrous, and your blaming our president ?
I'm pretty sure the commander in Chief feels Relief that the east coast is fine not "unlucky" because there was no disaster.
What a douchy comment.

[Lisa1129]

11:02 AM on 08/28/2011

Good night Irene, and thanks for the mess you left behind.

[keegach]

10:54 AM on 08/28/2011

to everyone that is calling out NYers as being soft and weak, ill be as soft as a marshmallow...oh and alive. The mid-west is flooding too, and not getting coverage? im sorry that it is easier for the news folks to literally point their camera out the window and cover a story, that's laziness on their part, or it's that the ten of you that have sandbags around your house are really not as big of a story as millions in the eye of the storm. I am proud of the way folks handled this with a flashlight in one hand and a glass of Pinot Noir in the other

[worried1]

02:08 PM on 08/28/2011

We actually found a nice Argentinian Malbec to be just perfect. Nothing wrong with being prepared.

[Mary Keefe]

10:19 AM on 08/28/2011

The waves were killer in jersey

[Djay0252]

08:37 AM on 08/28/2011

NYC people are no different than anybody else riding out the Hurricane. Why must THEY be singled out?

[hotspringspark]

09:00 AM on 08/28/2011

Uh..ask Irene?

[Jonah Green]

10:59 AM on 08/28/2011

Because this is the New York page

[keegach]

11:02 AM on 08/28/2011

thank you!!!

[orlandongomez]

08:22 AM on 08/28/2011

Good work from government of NYC; plus Good behavior from people of NYC is equal to Good result in NYC. This is what is happening in NYC while IRENE passes through NYC>>>Goodbye IRENE.

[tshnh]

07:42 AM on 08/28/2011

would it be really that bad if NY was underwater, only the rats would survive like Bloomberg, Baldwin, SJP, and so on, how bad could it be

[Richy33]

08:17 AM on 08/28/2011

New yorkers are tough as they come. We wont be standing on any bridge or highway waiting for the help to arrive.

[Djay0252]

08:38 AM on 08/28/2011

Nope...they will be in the bars drinking their troubles away...like always.

[jhammelman]

06:57 AM on 08/28/2011

Is this covered by Obamacare?

[jhammelman]

06:54 AM on 08/28/2011

I guess Obama should be back to golf by Monday or Tuesday. I wish we had a real president.

[pfld555]

08:55 AM on 08/28/2011

Hey, the more time he spends on the golf course, the less damage he can do, so don't complain.

[hotspringspark]

09:03 AM on 08/28/2011

Hey, thats the way I feel. The marathon vacations by the downgrader in chief is good for the country; fewer days to "delete" America.

[libluv235]

12:24 PM on 08/28/2011

Where were you in the fall of 2008? I distinctly remember a country hitting the skids and Dubyah at the helm. Sure, repubs with their job destroying tax cuts, wars, torture, let them eat cake attitude did us a load of good.

[email4kh]

10:35 AM on 08/28/2011

Yeah. Except that Duhbyuh had taken THREE TIMES as many vacation days at this point in his presidency. (That's the part Sean Hannity doesn't talk about.)

[lawrencefishberg]

06:24 AM on 08/28/2011

This is a way for these awful local news shows, with their overpaid, giggling teleprompter readers to act like they really do something to justify their grotesque salaries...if these dumb shows spent a tenth of air time discussing the economy rather than dripping giddy over the weather, this would be a better city.....a for the do-nothing mayor bloomberg, he is looking really annoyed he wasn't able to disappear to his bahama hideout for the weekend....

[brawnydoc]

04:22 AM on 08/28/2011

It is all Bush's fault.

[lawrencefishberg]

06:25 AM on 08/28/2011

I disagree....he just USED the horror of 9/11 for his own political gain....let's give the guy a break!

[pfld555]

08:53 AM on 08/28/2011

And we all know Obama, nor any other Democrat would use a disaster for political gain. "Never let a crisis go to waste", according to Rahm Emanuel (yes, he's a Democrat).

[libravalidus]

01:35 AM on 08/28/2011

I was really looking forward to seeing the photos, but alas, I can't move past the three first photos in either direction before the site freezes and then shuts down on me. Tell me, how does New York look while deserted?

[ztak123]

03:20 AM on 08/28/2011

It looks deserted!

[hotspringspark]

09:05 AM on 08/28/2011

It looks.. er..ehemm, well...empty.

[athena1]

01:09 AM on 08/28/2011

Thanks to Irene my senior year of highschool has been postponed. (I'm in CT not NYC, though I wish I was.) I'm not sure whether to be dissapointed or happy...

[pfld555]

08:50 AM on 08/28/2011

It's only a few days. You can expect bigger setbacks and disappointments in the years to come, and if you're of any character at all, you'll learn how to deal with them. It's called "life". Good luck to you.