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FORT MYERS - For the third day in a row, Southwest Florida International faced more canceled flights and delays as Tropical Storm Irene ripped through the northeast.

Streets turned into rivers, swallowing cars and flooding neighborhoods Sunday as Irene caused billions of dollars in damage.

"Virginia, they're really seeing a lot of power outages," said Greg Brostowicz with Florida Power and Light. "Driving through there, the gas stations are out of service because they don't have electricity."

FPL sent 160 workers to repair downed power lines in Washington D.C. after 80 mile-per-hour winds battered the mid-Atlantic.

By the time Irene reached New York Sunday morning it had weakened from a Category One to a Tropical Storm.

"Based on the forecasts it sounded like we were going to have some pretty strong winds," said Mike Perlow, who lives in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. "Thankfully it doesn't seem like those ever came last night."

Perlow sent Fox 4 photos of toppled tree limbs and minor flooding.

"We have a number of friends who have flooding in their basement that are still dealing with that today both here in New Jersey and in Pennsylvania," said Perlow. "Thankfully I don't know of anybody that has any significant damage or any injuries or anything like that."

In Newark, where flights from Southwest Florida International were canceled Sunday, another Fox 4 viewer snapped a photo of a car almost fully submerged in water.

Another viewer snapped a picture showing Irene's wrath on Rhode Island, as waves shot high into the air.

"I'm afraid that the hurricanes will knock down some trees," said Tera Wason, whose parents live in Vermont. "My dad's calling every hour or two just to make sure I know he's OK."

At RSW, 15 flights were canceled Sunday impacting  Washington D.C., New York, Boston and Philadelphia.

Flights to Atlanta were delayed two hours.

New York's LaGuardia and JFK airports, along with Newark's Liberty airport will all reopen Monday morning.

"I think when you have more than 1 million people out of power and several deaths," said Brostowicz, "I think it will go down as a very significant storm."

FPL employees will be deployed for at least a week to help out.

MATT GRANT, REPORTER
mgrant@fox4now.com