Hurricane Isabel cleanup begins

RICHMOND, Va. – Waiting lines lengthened and frustration mounted Saturday as people living along the hundreds of miles damaged by Hurricane Isabel’s floods and winds realized that it could be days before their next hot bath or home-cooked meal.

The huge storm knocked out electrical service for about 6 million homes and businesses from North Carolina’s Outer Banks north to New York, and the extent of damage combined with debris-blocked streets overwhelmed utility crews. An estimated 2.8 million homes were still blacked out Saturday.

At least 30 deaths had been blamed on the storm, 17 of them in hard-hit Virginia.

North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware were declared federal disaster areas.

On North Carolina’s battered Outer Banks, which bore the brunt of Isabel’s landfall, damage to the island chain’s only highway hampered recovery efforts.

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The North Carolina National Guard hoped to airlift Salvation Army mobile kitchens to Buxton on Hatteras Island, which was cut off from the mainland because the ocean cut through part of the highway, and to Ocracoke Island.

However, that plan had to be dropped Saturday, said Salvation Army spokesman John Edwards. The kitchens were too heavy for the helicopters supplied for the mission, and they will have to be shipped out on barges, he said.

About 300 people were isolated in Hatteras Village, officials said.

“We are bringing in supplies as fast as we can. We’re sending water, fuel, generators, and we’ve been getting things in since the morning after the storm,” Judge said Saturday. “Their spirits are well. When you get down there, you’ll see they’re a robust bunch of people, and we’re giving them all the attention we have.”

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge visited storm-damaged areas in North Carolina and Virginia, where he walked through the silt-caked streets of the Chesapeake Bay city of Poquoson with Virginia Gov. Mark Warner.

“Our job is to provide the kind of hope and the kind of support that this and similar communities need,” Ridge told Poquoson residents who had been laboring to clear their homes of downed trees.