Hurricane Irene batters New York with heavy winds and driving rain

Hurricane Irene battered New York with heavy winds and driving rain on Sunday, shutting down the US financial capital and most populous city, halting mass transit and causing massive power blackouts as it churned slowly northward along the eastern seaboard.

New York City's normally bustling streets were eerily quiet after authorities ordered tens of thousands of residents to evacuate low-lying areas and shut down its subways, airports and buses.

Those who had to travel were left trying to flag down yellow taxis that patrolled largely deserted streets.

Irene, still a menacing 480-mile (780-km)-wide hurricane, was enveloping towns and cities in the northeast, hugging the Atlantic coast and threatening floods and surging tides.

At least nine deaths were reported in North Carolina, Virginia and Florida. Several million people were under evacuation orders on the US East Coast.

The storm dumped up to eight inches of rain on the Washington region, but the capital appeared to have avoided major damage. Some bridges were closed but airports remained open and transit operated on a normal schedule.

From the Carolinas to Maine, tens of millions of people were in the path of Irene, which howled ashore in North Carolina on Saturday, dumping torrential rain, felling trees and knocking out power.

"The edge of the hurricane has finally got upon us," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the more than eight million people who live in New York as he warned that tropical storm-force winds would hit the city.

Times Square, often called the crossroads of the world, was sparsely populated, mostly with visitors, as Irene rolled into the city with full force.