Rivers swollen by the torrential rain from Hurricane Irene started to recede today in many towns across the Northeast, but the death toll from the powerful storm rose to 45.
The receding water eased the flooding that had paralyzed parts of the region and revealed more damage to homes, farms and businesses across the flood-scarred landscape. Repair estimates indicated that the storm would almost certainly rank among the nation's costliest natural disasters, despite packing a lighter punch than initially feared.
In Vermont, the lower river levels today allowed relief crews to reach the last of the tiny communities that had been entirely cut off from help by the hurricane's fast-moving floodwaters.
Of the 11 towns that had been severed from the outside world, the final one to be reached by rescuers was tiny Wardsboro, a village of 850 residents in the Green Mountains. The community is little more than a post office and some houses standing along Route 100, a highway popular in the fall with tourists searching out autumn colors.
Gov. Peter Shumlin said the previously isolated communities all have vehicle access now, though some require four-wheel drive to get there.
The National Guard continued to ferry supplies to mountain towns that had no electricity, no telephone service and limited transportation in or out. Helicopters arrived with food, blankets, tarps and drinking water.
In the ski resort town of Killington, residents went to the elementary school for free hot dogs and corn on the cob. Jason and Angela Heaslip picked up a bag filled with peanut butter, cereal and toilet paper for their three children and three others visiting from Long Island.
"Right now, they're getting little portions because we're trying to make the food last," said Jason Heaslip, who has only a dollar in his bank account because the storm has kept him from getting paid by the resort where he works.
Don Fielder, a house painter in Gaysville, said the White River roared through his house, tearing the first floor off the foundation and filling a bathroom tub with mud. He was upbeat as he showed a visitor the damage but said he's reluctant to go into town for fear he will cry when people ask about the home he built himself 16 years ago.
Other losses include a 1957 Baldwin piano and a collection of 300 Beanie Babies amassed by his daughter, who does not live with him but has a bedroom at his house.
"I bet that's in the river," he said.
DEATH TOLL RISES TO AT LEAST 45
Irene has been blamed for at least 45 deaths in the continental U.S., plus one in Puerto Rico and seven more in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
If that death toll stands, it would be comparable to 1999's Hurricane Floyd, which caused 57 deaths in the U.S. and the Bahamas when it moved through the Caribbean and charged up the East Coast into New England. At the time, it was the deadliest U.S. hurricane in nearly 40 years but was later dwarfed by the 1,800 deaths caused by Katrina in 2005.
In Killington, residents were volunteering to use their lawn tractors to help remove mud and debris. People with electricity were letting neighbors without water use their showers. One question was whether the camaraderie would wear thin before things returned to normal.
Karen Dalury, who did not have power at her home, said she had been eating vegetables from her garden and storing some in a neighbor's freezer.
"For now it's fine," she said. "But who knows how long this is going to continue."
In North Carolina, where Irene blew ashore along the Outer Banks on Saturday before heading for New York and New England, Gov. Beverly Perdue said the hurricane destroyed more than 1,100 homes and caused at least $70 million in damage.
With Irene gone, scientists turned their attention to the open Atlantic Ocean, where Tropical Storm Katia was gaining strength and forecast to become a hurricane by early next week. Meteorologists said it was too soon to determine where it might go.