Hurricane Irene battered New York with heavy winds and driving rain on Sunday, knocking out power and flooding Lower Manhattan’s deserted streets even as it lost some of its strength.
Irene was downgraded to a tropical storm Sunday morning but was still sending waves crashing onto shorelines and flooding coastal suburbs. There was a foot of water in the streets at the South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan and the tide seemed to be rising, but there was less damage than feared.
The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq indicated they would open for normal trading on Monday. But with the subway closed and commuter rail service suspended, the question remains: who will staff Wall Street?