© Reuters/Lucas JacksonPeople stand behind sandbags ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Irene in Amagansett, NY August 27, 2011.
Hurricane Irene charged up the East Coast Saturday toward New York, shutting down the city, and millions of Americans hunkered down as the giant storm halted transport and caused massive power blackouts.
"The storm is coming," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the more than 8 million people who live in the United States' most populous city that includes Wall Street, one of the world's major financial centers.
From the Carolinas to Maine, tens of millions of people were in the path of the 580 mile-wide storm that howled ashore in North Carolina at daybreak Saturday, dumping torrential rain, felling trees and knocking out power.
At least seven deaths were reported in North Carolina, Virginia and Florida. Several million people were under evacuation orders on the U.S. East Coast.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, which connects Virginia's Eastern Shore with the mainland and is regarded as a modern engineering wonder, was closed because of the winds and rain.
This year has been one of the most extreme for weather in U.S. history, with $35 billion in losses so far from floods, tornadoes and heat waves. President Barack Obama was keeping a close eye on preparations for the hurricane.
New York City's normally bustling streets turned eerily quiet after authorities ordered unprecedented major evacuations and shut down its airports and subways.
