As commuters trickled into a mostly unscathed New York City on Monday in the wake of Hurricane Irene, raging rivers continued to cause record flooding all across the north-eastern United States and electricity companies struggled to restore power to 5 million darkened homes and businesses.

Damaged and blocked rail lines more or less shut down morning commuter services from the suburbs to Manhattan, which had itself emerged mostly intact from the storm. Wall Street was open on Monday and the US Open Tennis Tournament began in Queens as planned. Some questioned whether the authorities had unnecessarily overstated the dangers associated with Irene in the hours before she struck.

The hurricane’s legacy was nonetheless one of misery for many. At least 21 persons died in the US before it crossed into eastern Canada. One man in a suburb north of New York City died trying to help a father and son entangled in live power lines. After being electrocuted himself, he fell into a puddle of water that was also live, preventing horrified onlookers from pulling him away.

In New Jersey, Celena Sylvestri, 20, called the police to say she was up to her neck in flood water in her car. When a rescue team found her eight hours later still at the wheel she had drowned.

Some of the heaviest rainfall was in the Catskill region of New York and in Vermont which last night was confronting its worst floods since 1927, with roads washed out and buildings partially destroyed, as well as one of Vermont’s famous covered bridges in the town of Rockingham.

Vermont is not a place you would associate with a tropical storm. Yet floodwaters surged through Brattleboro, one of its biggest towns, and officials said the worst is still to come.

Algeria’s acceptance of Gaddafi’s family angered Libyan leaders, who want the autocrat and his entourage to face justice for years of repressive rule. — Reuters

Family being given passage to third country: Algeria

Cairo: On the run, fallen Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s family, which slipped into Algeria, is being given passage to a third country, Algerian officials said, revealing that his daughter Aisha has given birth to a baby girl. Gaddafi’s wife Safia, Aisha and his sons Mohammed and Hannibal were said to have entered Algeria on Monday. But as the Libyans rebels demanded immediate repatriation of the Gaddafi clan, the Algerian officials said Algeria had given them “a pass” to enter a third country. But officials did not name the country where the Gaddafi clan was headed for, with speculation rife that it could be any of the North African countries, many of whom have been recipients of Gaddafi’s largesse. — PTI 

‘Friends of Libya’ to meet in Paris on Thursday

Paris: Senior officials from around 60 countries will meet in Paris on Thursday as the “friends of Libya” to secure financial and diplomatic support for the fledgling revolutionary regime. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain will jointly host the event, welcoming leaders of the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) into the international fold. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Canada’s PM Stephen Harper and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel will come.The biggest question mark hangs over the attitude China, India, Russia, South Africa and Brazil, who had concerns over the NATO intervention, but will now be asked to help in rebuilding. — AFP