You won’t need much of an excuse to stay home on Saturday and Sunday: Everything is being canceled because of Hurricane Irene, starting with New York City. In an unprecedented move, the Big Apple is shutting down the entire city bus and subway system at noon Saturday. New York has also ordered 250,000 people to evacuate from low-lying areas of southern Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens to evacuate, as well as a wide swath of Staten Island.
Forget driving down the Shore or to AC: Gov. Chris Christie has ordered mandatory evacuations of a long list of Shore towns from Cape May to Highlands. The New Jersey State Police closed the Garden State Parkway southbound at exit 98 at 8 p.m. Friday and all Atlantic City casinos are closed.
Forget flying anywhere: All Port Authority airports–Newark, JFK and LaGuardia–will stop domestic and international flights at noon Saturday. In case any travelers are stranded, the Port Authority has laid in a three-day supply of food at two Terminal A restaurants.
Forget the train: NJ Transit will suspend train service as of noon tomorrow, as will the PATH and New York City bus and subway service. The last Amtrak into New York will be at 6:22 p.m. and the last Airtrain to Railink at 7 p.m. All Airtrain service will be suspended at 11 p.m.
Closer to home, Essex County has sent out a note that all county parks and recreation facilities except for the Codey Arena will be closed to the public on August 27 and 28. This includes golf courses, Turtle Back Zoo, miniGOLF Safari, senior recreation buildings and all roads that travel through the parks. The county says that, because of the anticipated damage to trees, senior buildings in the parks will remain closed on Monday, August 29, so that park crews can clean up. The Codey Arena in West Orange will be open as an emergency shelter from 6 p.m. on Saturday and all day on Sunday. The Red Cross will have blankets and food available.
We’ll add closings to this story as they are announced.
UPDATE, Saturday, 7:47 a.m.: New York City has expanded the evacuation; 370,000 people are now being told to find shelter elsewhere. The Jets have postponed their pre-season game against the Giants, which was to have been Sunday night, to Monday night at 7 p.m.
Subway photo by ishane via Flickr.
