Hospital deluged with births as Irene battered North Carolina

WILMINGTON: As Hurricane Irene lashed the US East Coast, it brought a deluge of another sort to a North Carolina hospital - an unusually high number of newborn babies.

Seventeen babies were born at the New Hanover Regional Medical Center during an 18-hour stretch on Friday and Saturday when the hospital was on lockdown during the storm, spokeswoman Carolyn Fisher said. (Reuters)