Hopefully everyone is ok.  Prayers for all in the affected areas.
(Via-Weather.Com) Hurricane Irene has begun its lumbering march up the East Coast of United States. Hurricane Irene has made landfall near Cape Lookout, North Carolina. This ends the near three-year gap of a hurricane making landfall along the United States coastline.
Punishing rain bands are lashing the Carolinas, southeast Virginia and the Delmarva Peninsula.  Sustained tropical storm-force winds are occurring across eastern North Carolina with several gusts above hurricane force along the immediate coast. Winds are climbing to sustained tropical storm-force over southeast Virginia.

Extreme, destructive impacts are expected through the weekend in eastern portions of the Mid-Atlantic and New England. Hurricane warnings are posted as far north as New England, including New York City and Long Island. Those destructive impacts include a significant water level rise (surge and wave action), excessive rainfall and damaging winds.

Storm preparationsshould be complete for all locations in the path of Irene. If not, they should be rushed to completion now. 
This is a storm that poses an extraordinary threat and will increasingly affect the eastern Mid-Atlantic and then eastern New York and New England over the next 24 to 36 hours.
Hurricane Irene made landfall near Cape Lookout, North Carolina, just before 8 a.m. EDT as an 85-mph, category 1 hurricane. Irene still maintains this intensity.  The center of Irene is located about 95 miles south of Norfolk, Virginia, and is moving to the north-northeast near 15 miles per hour.
The center of Irene is forecast to move from eastern North Carolina to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay by this evening and then ride up the coast with an eventual landfall anticipated on Sunday along western Long Island then on the other side of Long Island Sound in Southern New England as a minimal hurricane.
Tropical-storm-force winds will continue to spread up the coast and inland from eastern North Carolina into eastern Virginia and the Delmarva Peninsula, with hurricane-force winds along the coast.  Tropical-storm-force winds will overspread the entire eastern Mid-Atlantic tonight, with hurricane-force winds near the coast.
Tropical storm and hurricane force winds will make their way into southeastern New York (including New York City) and Long Island by Sunday morning, and into southern parts of New England.

Once Irene moves inland, tropical-storm-force winds should spread across much of New England and the Hudson Valley on Sunday into Sunday night.  Along the coast, a storm surge (water level rise) between 5 to 9 feet is expected in North Carolina, with large waves on top of that water level rise.  Further up the coast from the North Carolina/Virginia border to Cape Cod, a water level rise of 4 to 8 feet, with higher waves, can be expected.
Dangerous surf, deadly rip currents, beach erosion, and ocean over wash can be expected from North Carolina northward until Irene moves out.
Hurricane warnings are in effect from Little River Inlet, North Carolina (near the South Carolina border) north to Sagamore Beach, Massachusetts:  this includes Pamlico, Albemarle, and Currituck Sounds, Delaware Bay, Chesapeake Bay south of Drum Point, New York City, Philadelphia, Long Island, Long Island Sound, coastal parts of Connecticut and Rhode Island, Block Island, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket.
Tropical storm warnings are in effect along Chesapeake Bay from Drum Point northward and the Tidal Potomac (including Washington, D.C., and Baltimore); and the New England Coast north of Sagamore Beach, Massachusetts, to Eastport, Maine, and southern Nova Scotia.  As Irene tracks up the Eastern Seaboard, tornadoes are possible.
In addition to the destructive winds and coastal flooding from the storm surge, Irene is also a flooding rain maker and rainfall amounts from eastern North Carolina to the Hudson Valley and New England could reach 6 to 15 inches and possibly higher in a few spots.