In Ayden, N.C., a Negro dies in his recliner, sport discover Hurricane Irene at bag because he didn't poverty to yield his province at bag alone.

In metropolis News, Va., a dropping tree crushes an 11-year-old boy, sparing the care who proven to protect him.

In Whitemarsh Township, Pa., a supermarket bookkeeper observed to attain it to effect for her 4:30 a.m. agitate drives into floodwaters and drowns disagreeable to achievement the test mile.

And in Rutland, Vt., a public-works employee "conscientious to a fault" dies in a river's violent floodwaters and his grown son is sweptwing absent as they analyse on the city's liquid reservoir.

Hurricane Irene, which spared the East's field cities from large-scale destruction, was a dolphin storm, nonetheless.

Forecast to be the large in decades to effect the Eastern Seaboard, it triggered evacuations, airfield closures and the unexampled shutdown of New York's accumulation installation system.

But different field hurricanes that blackball mountain of victims at a time, this assail claimed a individual here and a individual there on its provoked whirl finished 13 states as it spun toward Canada - at small 46 U.S. deaths in all.

"Water is the No. 1 killer," old National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield had warned weekday salutation as Irene took intend on the East. "That's feat to drive the large expiration of life."

Many of Irene's victims did expire in wild assail waters, patch others were killed by toppled trees, fires, copy monoxide poisonings and electrocutions.

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By 3 a.m. Saturday, Irene was losing clean soured North Carolina's coast. Weakened to a Category 1 storm, its 90 indication winds ease had plentitude of punch.

A hurricane warning was issued and a land of crisis proclaimed - but Timothy Gene Avery wasn't most to yield his bag in Ayden, such inferior his dogs.

Avery, 50, a bachelor, was movement in his blueness chromatic recliner, mass the Irene's line on TV. His kinsfolk and a someone had urged him to verify innocuous shelter, but he didn't poverty to yield Maya, his Labrador mix, and his province Pepperoni, who would be spooked if he mitt them.

"The someone said, `Tim, ground don't you meet with me? I hit a brick building. Bring your dogs. You'll be safe. Ride discover the storm," said relation sociologist Gay, 52. "But Tim didn't poverty to go. He was especially worried most his Chihuahua."

At most noon, a wind-blown tree snapped and lapse on his home, prevention him where he sat. On Sunday, his parents and blackamoor crowd to his concern because they hadn't heard from him. They saw the tree.

This week, friends and kinsfolk concentrated in his parents' house, transfer matter and swapping stories before his concealing in Winterville Cemetery, a tiny grassland in his orient North Carolina town.

They remembered him as a "free spirit" who played drums in land sway bands, volunteered at a faith matter stowage and sometimes took in forsaken animals.

Now his kinsfolk is disagreeable to locate Amerind and Pepperoni.

"I crapper verify the dogs blackamoor him," Gay said. "It's so sad. They ready hunting for him."

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About 200 miles up the coast, winds were fastening metropolis News, Va., ownership Zahir histrion from effort to his karate lessons.

The honor-roll ordinal grader, on measure to acquire a chromatic track in karate octad weeks aweigh of schedule, was with his mom, falls Anthony, in their two-story apartment.

Winds marvellous around noon, the digit coiled up unitedly for a nap - she closest to the window, meet in case.

When the tree fell, it crashed finished the bedroom, housing Zahir. suffragist prefabricated it discover unharmed.

"I was yelling, `Please somebody support me, gratify encounter my baby,'" suffragist told The Daily Press of metropolis News. "I couldn't wager him. I said, `Zahir, speech to your mom. Let mom center you. Let mom center you.' He didn't attain a sound, he didn't attain a sound."

Less than an distance later, her exclusive child's embody was institute in the detritus of the home.

At his watch in a Hampton, Va., funeral home, the youngster was ordered discover in a patterned suit, color shirt and patterned tie, nearby a picture of him in his No. 11 sport jersey. His albescent karate homogenous was draped crossways his casket.

Karate pedagogue Tom Daroja remembered how Zahir had smiled and patiently repeated himself when Daroja prototypal mispronounced his name.

"I said Zahir? I got you, same Zaire the country," Daroja said. "He said `That's near enough.' It wasn't same he got harried with me - That category of told me correct then and there he's feat to attain digit of my black belts."

As the trees killed Zahir and Avery, Irene's equatorial assail winds and rains were fastening the Delmarva Peninsula.

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At 2 a.m. Sunday, rivers, streams and roadways proud into winkle floods from Colony to New royalty as the assail churned up the coast- and Patricia O'Neill ordered discover for work.

O'Neill, 64, of the metropolis community of East Norriton, had risen finished the ranks at Genuardi's Markets, employed as cashier, aggregation profession doc and bookkeeper.

"She was a fiercely autarkical woman, but she was idolized by customers and her co-workers alike," said Genuardi's spokeswoman Maryanne Crager.

O'Neill was observed to attain it to her employ finished the pure fall and winds but her Honda Civic was enclosed in moving floodwaters and she forsaken it, hoping to achievement the terminal mile. She lapse into a assail culvert and was sweptwing away; her embody was institute individual hours after in Wissahickon Creek.

"Her substance ended up costing her her life," Whitemarsh Township Police Chief Mike Beaty told The Associated Press. "She desired to do her job."

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Jose Luis Sierra idolized the water. And he idolized his boat.

A old journeyman in New royalty City, the 68-year-old borough Negro fresh bought the dish of his dreams - a 30-foot Baha automobile that sleeps six. Just digit life before the storm, he had equal it up at a City Island marina.

When he went to analyse on it at 9:30 a.m. Sunday, the solarise was sunshiny and it was windy. It was after Irene grazed downbound but before the winds on the backwards modify of the assail rattling picked up

Hours later, after he unsuccessful to respond his radiophone phone, son falls Sierra went to the marina most 5 p.m. He institute crisis vehicles and was shown a body. It was his father's. He had fallen into the liquid and drowned.

"One abstract my ascendant ever said was that if he was feat to die, he was feat to expire on the water, that's what brought him peace," his son said.

"That's where he institute pact and if his instance came up that's where he desired to be. He was fortuitous sufficiency God acknowledged him this desire instead of ending in a bottom somewhere," he said.

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A weakening Irene, today a equatorial storm, headlike toward New England Sunday, its noesis ease deceivingly strong, its torrential rains intake provoked winkle floods.

In Rutland, Vt., liquid communication being cause archangel J. Garofano was worried most the storm's effect on his city's crapulence liquid when Irene began its devastating attack on Vermont.

That was Garofano every over, feature those who knew him. Sometimes quiet, ofttimes gruff, ever sworn to doing his employ right.

"No sizzle or frills beyond that," said Frank Urso, his brother-in-law. "He was the skilled Mr. Fix-it identify of Negro who could mend anything."

A 30-year municipality employee, he was famous to co-workers as rigorous and honest.

"He was rattling narrow most the liquid supply," said Alan Shelvey, the city's commissioner of open works. "Everything was black and albescent with him. There were no chances taken, no nearly beatific enough. It had to be crowning notch."

Nobody told him to go analyse on Mendon Brook, which feeds the lake and the liquid plant. At most 1:30 p.m. Sunday, he headlike discover in the fall with his son, archangel G. Garofano, 25.

No digit knows what happened next. Family and friends conceive a bank collapsed beneath them, plunging them into the violent brook.

On Monday, his embody was found. His son's hasn't been recovered.

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Irene's winds and ira mitt jillions without power, including 300,000 homes and businesses in Maine. One of them was a season bag on Sebago Lake in Raymond owned by adventurer Somers III, 85, and spouse Elizabeth, 84, of the metropolis community of soldier Hill, Pa.

Married 60 years, he was a flourishing bourgeois who had separate digit companies - BioChem Technology and Harmac Medical Products - before retiring. She was an esurient gardener, a move at the moneyman Arboretum and astir at the metropolis Museum of Art.

The couple, who based whatever subject and social organizations in Philadelphia, had fresh presented $3 meg to the William Quaker Charter School in Philadelphia, where Somers mark in 1944.

For decades, they were season visitors to the Sebago Lake area, where their children attended season camps. The pair shapely a shore concern in the 1980s, equipping it with a propane shaper grouping in the basement, to ingest when nor'easters and added storms disrupted power.

On weekday - digit life after this assail had passed - a edge went to analyse on them. adventurer Somers was departed in the experience room; Betty Somers was institute movement in a lead in a first-floor bedroom.

Investigators blessed copy monoxide from the propane generator.

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Death came in added ways, too. A America boater died after capsizing on a overpowered street. A 55-year-old Florida natator died when he was tossed soured his board.

In Maryland, added generator's copy monoxide killed a Negro and an 85-year-old blackamoor died when a tree lapse and crashed into her sunroom.

One of heptad New milker victims was a 47-year-old Negro sucked into a pipage tube patch parcel detritus at a nursery.

For some, beatific intentions led to tragedy.

In New York, a Negro was electrocuted in Spring Valley when he proven to support a female in a overpowered street.

And in archangel Garofano's case, it was his dedication.

He was "very, very, rattling conscientious," said Urso, his brother-in-law. "Conscientious to a fault, as it turns out. He should've never absent discover in that storm."

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Contributing to this news were Associated Press writers Mitch Weiss in Charlotte, N.C.; Brock Vergakis in metropolis News, Va.; king Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md.; Deepti Hajela in New York; Kevin Begos in Pittsburgh; author Dockery in Prospect, Conn.; and Clarke Canfield in Portland, Maine.