East Coast tries to pick up pieces after devastation left by Irene

Floodwater races through Brattleboro, Vermont.

At least 20 deaths across eight states were blamed on Irene, which fizzled to a post-tropical cyclone and headed over eastern Canada on Monday morning.

And more than 3 million people were still without power across the Northeast early Monday.

But much of the trouble left behind centered on flooding from North Carolina through New England, with homes inundated and roads torn apart by raging floodwater.

Some of the worst flooding in generations ravaged Vermont's normally tranquil countryside early Monday, turning babbling brooks into turbulent rivers, knocking homes from their foundations and washing away at least one person.

Rafts float on Irene floodwaters

iReporters have their eyes on Irene

Hundreds stranded on N.C. island

Irene batters Long Island, New York

In North Carolina, as many as 200 residents were isolated and without power Monday on Ocracoke Island, near where Irene first made landfall as a hurricane on Saturday. Supply transport to Ocracoke is hampered as large chunks of a key roadway were taken out by violent ocean waves.

Sand dunes at the north end of Ocracoke "have apparently been spread across the road, so no one yet knows how badly the pavement is damaged," said Clayton Gaskill, manager of Ocracoke's tiny FM radio station WOVV.

And in Plattsville, New York, seven families who thought they had escaped the wrath of Irene in Brooklyn were stranded in the Catskill Mountains Monday after bridges crumbled all around them.

"We're sitting in one room, and it's a horrible situation and there is no way out," said Irina Noveck, who was stuck along with 22 other adults and children. "Kids are getting scared, food is getting spoiled."

But parts of the East Coast will return to normal Monday, as some subway services will resume in New York City and the three major airports in the area will open.

The U.S. government estimated that the cost from wind damage alone is expected to top $1 billion. Downed power lines left more than 4 million people without electricity during Irene's weekend journey up the East Coast.

"The impacts of this storm will be felt for some time, and the recovery effort will last for weeks or longer," President Barack Obama said Sunday evening from Washington.

Numerous "swift-water" rescue teams were dispatched Sunday night around Vermont, where state emergency management spokesman Mark Bosma said some small towns were "entirely covered with water" and people, including a woman who was in labor, were stranded in schools and cars.

Vermont State Police Capt. Ray Keefe said Wilmington is "cut off," hundreds of roads had been closed, and some homes were washed into lakes.

In New Jersey -- which had prompted the evacuation of more than 1 million people from the shore -- initial fears about coastal flooding gave way to fresh concerns about inland flooding, as an array of rivers and creeks eclipsed flood stages and continued to rise Monday.

That left many residents like Guy Pascarello, whose family's Secaucus home of 40 years was declared uninhabitable after it became inundated by three-foot-high waters, were trying to figure out what to do next.

"I don't know (what we'll do). This is all new ground," Pascarello said. "The good news is that it's just stuff. This is a home and we love our home, but it's just things."

Even locations well inland, like Princeton Junction about halfway between New York City and Princeton, had waters as high as 12 feet that covered roads and bridges, resident Edward Picco said Sunday.

Along the shore in Long Beach, New York, water poured underneath the boardwalk and into the city's downtown.

Outside Philadelphia, meanwhile, waters climbed to street-sign levels in Darby, with the water sending "couches, furniture, all kinds of stuff floating down the street," Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said. Two buildings collapsed in Philadelphia, Nutter told reporters, but no one was injured.

Officials have reported six deaths in North Carolina, four in Virginia, four in Pennsylvania, two in New York and one each in Connecticut, Maryland, Florida, New Jersey. Authorities are trying to determine whether another death reported in New York is connected to the storm.

In addition, one woman is "feared dead" in Vermont after being swept away in raging waters in Wilmington, Bosma said.

Connecticut emergency management spokesman Scott Devico said one man has been reported missing in river-waters in the inland town of Bristol, while two individuals are unaccounted for in East Haven because authorities do not know their whereabouts after their home got swept away by the sea.

And the governor of Virginia, parts of which saw 16 inches of rain and top winds clocked at 83 mph, warned Sunday that more bad news may be coming.

"Undoubtedly, there will be more reports of damage, of injuries, perhaps fatalities," Gov. Bob McDonnell told reporters.

Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, vowed Sunday that authorities will work with those impacted by the wind, rain, storm surge and resulting flooding.

"When the disaster comes off the news and no one is paying attention, we still don't go home," he said. "We know we've got a lot of work ahead of us."