More than one million households lack electricity in aftermath of hurricane that battered and flooded the East Coast. Residents of several states in the northeast US approached the Labour Day holiday weekend mired in mud and stuck in the dark nearly a week after Hurricane Irene swallowed parts of the region with flooding. About one million homes and businesses on the East Coast were still without electricity on Thursday, following outages for almost 10 million customers on Irene’s rampage last weekend. Patience is wearing thin among the people still waiting for power and internet connectivity, some of whom have been dragging soggy furniture to the curb, throwing out spoiled food and taking cold showers. The upcoming long weekend, normally a celebration of the end of summer, will be a wet mess for hundreds of thousands of homeowners who suffered damage, their cities and towns submerged under floodwaters in states such as New York, New Jersey and Vermont. Widespread damage Hundreds of people were rescued in Paterson, New Jersey, one of several New York City suburbs that were under water while the city itself went relatively unscathed some 30km away. President Obama is scheduled to visit the battered town on a tour of areas worst hit by the storm. In Vermont, the National Guard airlifted food and water to towns cut off by storm-damaged highways. Upstate New York saw rural mountain resorts flooded, ruining business for the holiday weekend. Everything smells like sewer because …

GFD was dispatched to a reported still alarm in the 2600 block of Connecticut at about 8:45 pm on 4-26-09, while en route I was able to see the header and glow at Central and 80-94. Truck 4 And Engine 4 being first on scene advised of a fully involved house with extension to a second house. Multiple lines were advanced and the deck gun was used to knock the fire down. Crews worked the scene for over an hour and fire investigators were requested.