Hurricane Irene saved its last blasts of fury for New York

Hurricane Irene saved its last blasts of fury for New York, paralyzing the city with hours of relentless rains and fears of flooding before its downgrade to a tropical storm Sunday morning.

It also left more than 110,000 people without power, including 32,378 in storm-ravaged Queens.

The weakening storm sent a scare from Wall Street in Lower Manhattan to Stillwell Ave. in Coney Island as the downpour that began Saturday raged all night, with rising water shutting down an outbound tube of the Holland Tunnel and a section of the Van Wyck Expressway.

New Yorkers were in agreement that after three days of warnings, they were expecting a bigger hit.

"I thought it was going to be much worse than this," said Anthony Ougelletta, 44, who was without power in Sheepshead Bay."This is like a rain and wind storm."

Joe Bruno, head of the city Office of Emergency Management, said the city was lucky to escape the full wrath of Irene. Nine people died as the hurricane cut its killer swath along the Eastern Seaboard, but there was just a light rain falling in Manhattan by 11:30 a.m.

"Mother Nature can be very cruel," he said.

GET LIVE UPDATES & PHOTOS OF IRENE

The Atlantic Ocean spilled over the beaches and onto the streets of the Rockaways, while Brooklyn's Red Hook section was also inundated as Con Edison reported more than 70,000 customers without power in New York City and another 40,000 in Westchester County -- many due to downed trees from gusting winds of up to 60 mph.

In a dramatic scene on Staten Island, the FDNY rescued dozens of adults and children from homes where they were trapped around 8 a.m. Sunday.

FDNY spokesman Paul Iannizzotto said 61 adults and 3 babies were trapped in homes on Saybrook St. near Croft Place. About 50 firefighters used swift water rescue boats to help carry the people to dry land nearby. Officials on scene reported no serious injuries.

Margaret Goffe, 71, woke up in Springfield Gardens to find an uprooted tree slammed into her two-family home -- and the electricity soon disappeared.

"I'm from the (Caribbean), so I'm used to hurricanes, but I couldn't believe it," she said."These things happen."

One block away, Khalid Burgos stood near his Nissan Pathfinder -- spared by random chance when a falling tree crushed a Porsche Carrera in the next parking spot.

"Inches! It missed my car by inches!" said Burgos, 40."There's power lines draped all over the place. I can't even move it."

Before Irene heads north into New England, the city could be soaked with up to a foot of rainfall. The city's mass transit remained idled by the former hurricane, with no word yet on when trains and buses would begin rolling.