Hospital deluged with births as Irene batters North Carolina

 WILMINGTON: As Hurricane Irene lashed the U.S. 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