Hurricane Irene is battering New York with ferocious winds and driving rain, shutting down the US financial capital.

Mass transit has been halted and massive power blackouts have been reported as the hurricane churns slowly northward along the eastern seaboard. New York City’s normally bustling streets area eerily quiet after authorities ordered tens of thousands of residents to evacuate low-lying areas and shut down its subways, airports and buses.

Live webcams: Hurricane Irene belts the East Coast.

The new Lake Champlain Bridge’s arch will be floated up the lake and lifted into place Thursday, New York state officials announced Tuesday.

Officials said the process of moving the arch will begin at sunrise Thursday. The arch will be floated from its construction site at Velez Marine in Port Henry to the bridge over a two- to four-hour period. It will then be lifted into place, a process that is expected to last four to eight hours.

Some marine and vehicle traffic restrictions will be in place, officials said. The ferry connecting New York State to Vermont will continue running during the work, officials said, but they warned that there could be higher-than-normal traffic with observers watching the arch work.

On the New York side, observers may watch from the Department of Environmental Conservation campground, Crown Point State Historic Site and Essex County Visitors Center, with limited free parking at the historic site. The DEC campground will charge an entrance fee.

The lift can also be viewed by visiting the state’s Lake Champlain Bridge webcam page. The webcam takes periodic still shots of the construction site.

The operation could be postponed or delayed due to excessive winds or lightning. The National Weather Service reports a 60 percent chance of thunderstorms Thursday with winds of 7-9 mph

A webcam offering worldwide viewers real-time looks at the Strand and Pier Plaza will go dark Friday for the first time since it went up 14 years ago.

The HD webcam, mounted at Hennessey’s Tavern by web designer and photographer Daniel Sofer of Hermosa and viewable at Hermosawave, is looking for a new home as Hennessey’s undergoes some construction. Sofer hopes to find another spot on the Hermosa Strand within a few weeks.

Meanwhile, hungry eyes can feast on other seaside views through webcams such as those operated by Good Stuff restaurant Eatgoodstuff and at lifeguard stations.

Sofer’s webcam is peeped by area residents who want to see whether it’s sunny at the beach, tourists who have been to Hermosa and want to reminisce, idlers goofing off at work, and folks who just like to gaze at sunny places. In addition, people often position themselves in front of the camera as they talk on the phone, so they can be seen and heard at the same time by far-flung friends and family.

Police officers sometimes express interest in the camera’s-eye view as well, just as they do with private security video, although Sofer has saved the images from the webcam only for the past year.

“People all over the world contact me,” Sofer said. “A lot of people contact me to clean it when it gets dirty. With the salt and fog, and wind blowing everything around, I have to clean it all the time.”

Sofer figures the webcam gets anywhere from 25,000 to 50,000 page views per day, but he said the figure could be misleading, because the page frequently refreshes, and some people leave the camera up on their computer screens all day. The webcam drew 45,000 page views during Monday and a bit of Tuesday, from 1,500 “unique people.”

Sofer first put the camera up when a Japanese business was promoting e-greeting cards with images of worldwide landmarks. The company made use of the webcam for about six months, then Sofer decided to keep it up and running: All webcam from Hermosa Beach.

People love to watch the bustle of airports, two new web cameras at Arlington’s municipal airport could even allow people who can’t make it up to the annual Arlington Fly-In in July to have a peek.

Airport commissioner and pilot Jeff Morgan said the new cameras are designed to help airport staff keep an eye on safety and security. The fun part is that people can go to the city’s website and see what’s going on, too.

“It’s absolutely something people will want to do,” Morgan said. “I know I’ll be using it so I can see what the weather is like at the airport if I want to practice touch and go, or take my kids out.”

Airport officials this month decided not to wait for the state Department of Transportation’s aviation division to fix a web camera used to monitor activity on the runways at the Arlington Municipal Airport.

“It had been down for six months,” airport manager Rob Putnam said. “So we decided to put up our own.” By the first week of May, two outdoor cameras that automatically pan, tilt and zoom will be installed on the airport office building.

If the webcam can be accessed by the community and more people are watching, the level of security at the airport during nights and weekends should go up as well, said Morgan, a commercial pilot for Delta Airlines. The cameras should be a benefit for out-of-town pilots, too, Putnam said.

“The cameras rotate every five minutes, so you can check runway conditions easily,” he said. “I’m going to appreciate that in the middle of snowstorms when I need to call out the snow plows.” Federal law requires that managers of small airports without air traffic control keep their runways clear at all times in case of emergency landings. The webcams help staff observe the runways from home on their off hours.

The cameras, which together cost about $6,000, should provide a wide view of the airport, Putnam said. The money comes from leftover airport improvement funds. City staff plan to install the cameras. Since the cameras weren’t on the 2011 city budget, the airport commission and City Council had to approve of the purchase.

Normally the state transportation department would buy such cameras with security grants, but the airport’s allocated security money went to put up some gates a couple years ago, Putnam said : Webcam HERE

The Indian River is a river and estuary, approximately 15 mi (24 km) long, in Sussex County in southern Delaware in the United States.

The river enters Indian River Bay, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean south of Cape Henlopen. The lower 6 mi (10 km) of the river form a navigable tidal estuary stretching westward from Indian River Bay, which is protected from the open ocean by two sand bar peninsulas. East of the bay is its mouth, the Indian River Inlet.

View live traffic conditions in Delaware  including Indian River Inlet cameras

The Strength of Place Village (SOPV) project is well underway at the corner of SW 100th Street and 13th Avenue SW in White Center and we are excited to announce that you can all view its progress via our new site construction camera, courtesy of Absher Construction Company.

There are many features to the camera, including a live image, archived images by calendar day/month, and the ability to print and save photos/videos. The time lapse option allows users to see all the live images taken all at once, so we will post updated time lapse photos every two months. The photos are updated every 13-15 minutes: The Strength of Place Village project

More than six inches of snow has fallen in the southeastern United States, the first time the South has seen large accumulations in several years.

Schools are closed today in parts of Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia and Florida after a heavy snowfall started yesterday afternoon and did not stop until after midnight. Typically, southern winter storms are short-lived, but temperatures are expected to remain below 36 until the end of the week in the central states. A full sun will return to the central US on Thursday and by Friday, the temperatures will move above freezing and into the 40s.

North Carolina, much of Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia are still under winter storm warnings. Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, the southern half of Oklahoma, are under hazardous weather advisories. Downtown Little Rock is covered with snow. Streets are icy and as yet, street transportation crews have not begun snow removal. A live webcam positioned in Little Rock has an aerial view of a snowbound intersection. Streets are empty today as the majority of the state’s schools are closed.

Georgia’s governor has declared a state of emergency to deal with the several inches of snow that fell yesterday and late last night. The National Weather Service is predicting more freezing rain and sleet in Georgia this afternoon. Today’s temperatures in Georgia will stay in the 30s, but tomorrow, even with a full sun, the temperatures will stay short of 30 which will keep much of the snow and ice deposits around. Live web cam images of downtown Atlanta show snow topped buildings and foggy skies brewing for another down fall that may bring at least three more inches of snow and ice.

Canceled and delayed flights hampered travelers in the Southeast from Little Rock to Birmingham and Georgia. There are a small number of power outages in Alabama, Arkansas dealt with outages too. Downtown Birmingham reports higher temperatures than both Georgia and Arkansas at 34 degrees. Birmingham’s sky cam captures snow roads in Alabama, enough to shut the city and the state down after the snowstorm.

Atlanta webcam click here

Little Rock webcam click here

Birmingham webcam click here

College campus webcams are a great way to take a look at life on campus before you ever set foot on campus. Weather cams and traffic cams are also helpful as you plan your college visit.

For example the webcam view from Burruss Hall, located on the Virginia Tech campus. This camera looks out on the Drillfield and across campus to where the majority of the residence halls are located.