Killington, Vt. -- Swollen rivers began falling Wednesday in much of the Northeast, allowing relief crews to reach the last of the tiny Vermont towns that had been entirely cut off from help by Hurricane Irene's fast-moving floodwaters.

The receding water eased the flooding that had paralyzed parts of the region and revealed more damage to homes, farms and businesses across the flood-scarred landscape. Repair estimates indicated that the storm would almost certainly rank among the nation's costliest natural disasters, despite packing a lighter punch than initially feared.

Of the 11 towns that had been severed from the outside world, the final one to be reached by rescuers was tiny Wardsboro, a village of 850 in the Green Mountains. The community is little more than a post office and some houses standing along Route 100, a highway popular in the fall with tourists searching out autumn colors.

The National Guard continued to ferry supplies to mountain towns that had no electricity, no telephone service and limited transportation in or out. Eight helicopters were expected to arrive Wednesday with food, blankets, tarps and drinking water.

In the ski resort town of Killington, residents came to the elementary school for free hot dogs and corn on the cob. Jason and Angela Heaslip picked up a bag filled with peanut butter, cereal and toilet paper for their three children and three others visiting from Long Island.

"Right now, they're getting little portions because we're trying to make the food last," said Jason Heaslip, who has only a dollar in his bank account because the storm has kept him from getting paid by the resort where he works.

Don Fielder, a house painter in Gaysville, said the White River roared through his house, tearing the first floor off the foundation and filling a bathroom tub with mud. He was upbeat as he showed a visitor the damage, but said he's reluctant to go into town for fear he will cry when people ask about the home he built himself 16 years ago.

Other losses include a 1957 Baldwin piano and a collection of 300 Beanie Babies amassed by his daughter, who does not live with him but has a bedroom at his house.

"I bet that's in the river," he said.

Irene has been blamed for at least 45 deaths in the continental United States, plus one in Puerto Rico and seven more in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

If that death toll stands, it would be comparable to 1999's Hurricane Floyd, which caused 57 deaths in the United States and the Bahamas when it moved through the Caribbean and charged up the East Coast into New England. At the time, it was the deadliest U.S. hurricane in nearly 40 years but was later dwarfed by the 1,800 deaths caused by Katrina in 2005.

An estimate released immediately after Irene by the Kinetic Analysis Corp., a consulting firm that uses computer models to project storm losses, put the damage at $7.2 billion in eight states and the District of Columbia.

That would eclipse damage from Hurricane Bob, which caused $1 billion in damage in New England in 1991, the equivalent of about $1.7 billion today, and Hurricane Gloria, which swept through the region in 1985 and left damage of $900 million, the equivalent of $1.9 billion today, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

This article appeared on page A - 10 of the San Francisco Chronicle- Read more

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