As the US East Coast struggled to recover from the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, rising floodwaters forced thousands of evacuations in New Jersey and Connecticut with 13 flooded Vermont towns already cut off

Irene will most likely prove to be one of the 10 costliest catastrophes in American history, the New York Times said, citing industry estimates putting the cost of the storm at $7 billion to $10 billion, largely because the hurricane pummelled an unusually wide area of the East Coast.