C'MON IRENE! MAYOR BLOOMBERG SAYS GET OUT NOW!

As Hurricane Irene steamrolled up the East Coast Saturday morning, weakening slightly in intensity but still packing a dangerous punch, Mayor Bloomberg urged those living in low-lying areas to flee - before it is too late.

The ferocious storm was downgraded to a Category 1 after it slammed into North Carolina, but its landfall in New York is still expected to produce winds of 75 mph and a powerful storm surge that could flood much of the city's coast.

"It is going to be a very serious thing," Mayor Bloomberg said at a press conference on Coney Island, one of the neighborhoods where a mandatory evacuation order is in place. "You have to leave right now."

"Staying behind is dangerous," Bloomberg said. "Staying behind is dangerous - it is against the law."

More than 370,000 people live in low-lying areas under the first-ever evacuation order, including South Beach on Staten Island, Brighton Beach in Brooklyn and the Rockaways.

The southern tip of Manhattan, including Battery Park City, is also vulnerable to a massive storm surge - and Bloomberg said it was possible that ConEdison would be forced to shut off power to the area due to fears of salt water destroying the region's electric cables.

"It's conceivable that in downtown Manhattan, for example, there will be no electricity and water in the streets," said the mayor, who said other low-lying areas could suffer similar fates.

A light rain started falling across parts of the five boroughs by 10 a.m., just two hours before the MTA plans to begin shutting down the mass transit network, including the subway system, for the first time in the city's history.

The looming shutdown was cited by Bloomberg as a reason for those living in the so-called Zone A neighborhoods to leave immediately, since evacuations could prove more difficult without the mass transit system.

City officials reported that streams of people have obeyed the order and fled the neighborhood, but scores more have decided to ignore the repeated warnings and ride out the storms in their homes.

Though several storefronts and homes in Coney Island were taped up, there was no sign of a mass exodus of the threatened neighborhood.

City Councilman Mike Nelson (D-Bklyn) predicts most folks in his district, which is comprised of Coney Island and Brighton Beach, haven't budged and only half will.

"They don't believe it," he said. "My sense is the majority are still here. Hopefully, they'll be alright."

Gov. Cuomo received a weather briefing early Saturday and said there was little change in the storm's track and that the city and Long Island should be bracing for a major hit. "People should take it seriously and evacuate and they should evacuate early," said Cuomo, who spoke at a National Guard base outside Albany, where hundreds of troops were readying to deploy.

State and federal officials were also setting up staging areas in Farmingdale and Stewart Air Force Base in Newburgh, where emergency personnel were preparing for the worst.

"That is their citizens' duty," he said. "This is not a situation to be overconfident."

City officials said ten teams of firefighters - two for each borough - were using school buses to help evacuate the elderly and the disabled, and that more than 7,000 nursing home patients had already been whisked away from low-lying areas.

Ninety-one shelters have been set up on higher ground and have begun receiving occupants. The shelters have a capacity of 70,000 people but have only received 400 so far, officials said.

With howling winds and torrential rains, the eye wall of the storm came ashore near Cape Lookout, N.C. at 7 a.m. Saturday.

Bays and harbors were soon overwhelmed with water, which poured into several coastal towns, flooding their streets. Hundreds of thousands of people in the Carolinas were reported to be without power soon after the storm arrived.

Irene, which had been a Category 2 storm when it was offshore, is expected to still be at hurricane strength when it reaches the New York City area, officials said. "New York City doesn't have a lot of real life experience with hurricanes," Bloomberg said. "We watched from afar as they've ravaged other parts of the nation...that doesn't mean it can't happen. It can and we must be prepared."



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