Hurricane Irene

New York became the latest state to declare a state of emergency in a scramble to get ahead of Hurricane Irene as the storm prepares to make a potentially deadly drive up the East Coast. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's declaration Thursday follows those of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley. North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue ?- whose state is projected to take the first hit Saturday when Hurricane Irene makes landfall in the U.S. ?

BABYLON, N.Y. -- "There was a fish in my kitchen," said Elizabeth Scoyen, standing on the deck of her apartment in the Babylon marina, two blocks from the Atlantic Ocean. "That is when I knew this was going to be bad," she said, as she arranged water-logged chair cushions, soaked clothes and lamps in the open air. Like many residents on the south shore of Long Island, Scoyen, 57, a retired high school teacher, came outside Wednesday as the rains let up, and tried to dry out her belongings and take stock of what just happened.

Here is a roundup of alleged cons, frauds and schemes to watch out for: Hurricane Irene — Law enforcement agencies predict that a wave of fraudulent charitable donation schemes will arrive in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. To make sure donations get to those who need them, the Internet Crime Complaint Center suggests that donors not respond to unsolicited emails or telephone calls seeking donations. Instead, donations should go directly to recognized charitable organizations, the agency said.

Hurricane Sandy has forced many cultural institutions in the Mid-Atlantic region to close their doors and cancel performances. In New York, Broadway shows that perform on Mondays have canceled their scheduled evening performances. That includes "Annie," "Chicago," "Evita," "Mamma Mia!," "Newsies," "Phantom of the Opera," "Rock of Ages" and "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. " The Metropolitan Opera has canceled its Monday evening performance of Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro. " [ Updated 2:45 p.m. Monday: All Broadway shows have cancelled their Tuesday performances as well.]

Traveling to the East Coast soon? With the uncertainty of Hurricane Irene -- namely how and where this storm will hit -- it's best to be prepared with what I like to call an "I-could-be-stranded strategy. " "These types of events are pretty normal; it happened a lot during the holiday storms" last year, says Anne Banas, executive editor of SmarterTravel . "It's always the same situation, but for a lot of people, it might be the first time it happens to them. " Banas advises travelers to be hyper-vigilant about monitoring all parts of their travel plan (transportation, lodgings, etc.)

As massive Hurricane Irene advanced toward the Eastern Seaboard with 115-mph winds, officials issued a hurricane warning for the entire North Carolina coast to the Virginia border, New York ordered low-lying hospitals and nursing homes to evacuate, and at least seven states declared emergencies. If Irene follows its current projected path, it will make landfall along North Carolina's Outer Banks on Saturday. The Category 3 storm withdrew from the Bahamas late Thursday, traveling north at 14 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.

Hurricane Irene will hit insurance companies' bottom lines, but property and casualty insurers' stocks were up Monday on the sentiment that things could have been worse. "Irene's impact on insurers will be minimal," said Loretta Worters, a spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute, an industry trade group. "Losses from this storm are likely to be between $2 billion to $5 billion, far less than the $45 billion, in 2011 dollars, from Hurricane Katrina. " Insured losses in other notable natural disasters include more than $22 billion for Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and more than $6 billion for Hurricane Rita in 2005.

Hurricane Irene, a ferocious and slow-moving storm, smashed into North Carolina, then slowly swirled its way up the Eastern Seaboard, flooding low-lying areas, knocking out power to as many as a million customers and forcing the densely populated regions of Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and New York City to take unprecedented steps as they braced for impact. At least nine people died — in car accidents, in robust surf, by heart attack and by falling trees — in North Carolina, Virginia and Florida.

After thrashing its way across Cuba, Hurricane Irene began its drive toward the Florida Keys and South Florida. The storm threatened coastal and inland flooding over at least the lower third of the Florida peninsula--most of which was under a hurricane warning. Concern over Irene's 75 mph winds and torrential rain drove tourists from Key West and snarled traffic in South Florida. Forecasters said areas as far north as Tampa Bay could be flooded. At 11 p.m.

Anyone whose travel plans were scuttled by Hurricane Irene likely spent time trying to contact his or her airline, but how long did that take? StellaService , which rates customer service quality, spent some time trying to quantify just how well airlines did in customer support. On Friday before the hurricane slammed the East Coast, the company called each airline eight times and tweeted them 12 times to test their responsiveness to fliers who were just plain anxious about how the storm would affect their itineraries.

Airlines have canceled more than 7,400 flights as Hurricane Sandy nears major airports along the East Coast. About 1,200 flights were scratched for Sunday and more than 5,500 were canceled for Monday as airlines scrambled to prepare for a potentially severe storm. An additional 640 flights were dropped for Tuesday, according to FlightAware.com, an airline information service. Many of the cancellations involved flights coming or going to New York area airports, such as Newark Liberty International, LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy.

NEW YORK - East Coast residents prepared Saturday for the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy, which forecasters expect to make landfall as soon as Monday night and then merge with a sprawling winter storm to create weather havoc for tens of millions of people across one-third of the nation. From Maine to the Carolinas, federal and state officials urged residents and businesses to prepare for the worst - drenching rain, flooding, high winds, highs seas, snow and widespread power outages.

If a powerful hurricane raked New York City , it could destroy the region's economy by causing more than $168 billion in damage. And that doesn't include the potential death toll. That's the assessment in a report released Thursday by CoreLogic, an analytics firm that evaluated the threat that hurricanes pose to the East Coast. The firm's annual Storm Surge Report pinpoints the vulnerabilities of single-family homes to storm-surge damage along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts.

Home Depot Inc., the world's largest home-improvement chain, reported third-quarter earnings that got a boost from homeowners preparing for and picking up after Hurricane Irene. For the three months ended Oct. 30, the Atlanta company said its net income jumped 12% to $934 million, or 60 cents a share, from $834 million, or 51 cents, a year earlier. The report Tuesday came a day after its closest competitor, Lowe's Cos., showed a plunge in earnings. Profit at the North Carolina company dropped 44.3% year over year to $225 million, with earnings per share down to 18 cents from 29 cents.

Six weeks after Hurricane Irene severed the only road to Hatteras Island, North Carolina's long struggle to reconnect the barrier island's 3,300 stranded residents to the mainland is almost over. The badly battered Highway 12 is finally due to reopen early this week. The reopening has required much more than just fixing a road. Highway 12, a slender ribbon of asphalt, is built on shifting sand. The island it serves refuses to stay in one place, buffeted by powerful tides and punishing storms.

A dispute over disaster aid has quickly grown into another partisan standoff that threatens to shut down the federal government, with no clear indication of how Congress will end the stalemate. The Senate on Friday overwhelmingly rejected a House-passed bill to temporarily fund the government and provide emergency aid for victims of Hurricane Irene and other recent disasters. But it also would have cut green energy programs supported by Democrats. The Senate voted 59 to 36 against the measure.

The Southern states that first felt the lash of Hurricane Irene exhaled and heavily populated New Jersey and New York City cautiously began a return to routine, but the pain was just beginning for parts of upstate New York and New England, where rivers leaped their banks and raged through towns, trapping an unknown number of people in floods. In Vermont, where soil was already saturated from a wet spring and soaking rains, rescue teams stymied by torrential floodwaters were unable to reach stranded residents in towns along the Winooski River, including the capital, Montpelier.

With federal disaster aid about to run out, the Democratic-led Senate will seek to advance a $6-billion package for victims of Hurricane Irene and other recent disasters, despite GOP opposition to providing emergency assistance unless it is paid for with spending cuts elsewhere. The Senate action would replenish depleted accounts at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has begun prioritizing aid. But the move escalates a confrontation with House Republicans, whose leaders have resisted allocating more money for emergency aid without comparable offsets elsewhere in the budget.