Sandy strikes - Superstorm batters US East Coast

 

Water rushes into the Carey Tunnel (previously the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel), caused by Hurricane Sandy, October 29, 2012, in the Financial District of New York. (AFP Photo / Andrew Burton)

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/usa/news/sandy-hurricane-hits-east-528/

The center of superstorm Sandy has reached the US state of New Jersey. The hurricane, which was downgraded to the “post-tropical” storm, has caused 13 deaths and left over 6 million along the East Coast without power.

­The storm, packing torrential rains and wind, made landfall along the New Jersey coast near Atlantic City, the National Hurricane Center says.

Earlier, the NHC said the category 1 Hurricane Sandy had lost tropical characteristics, becoming a “post-tropical cyclone” with maximum sustained winds near 85 mph and gusts reaching 115 mph.

The storm has heavily affected many parts of New York City, with power outages and several feet of water hitting large areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

The Statue of Liberty's torch has gone out, apparently due to extreme weather conditions.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned that conditions are expected to worsen, urging New Yorkers to stay inside. “Conditions outside are dangerous, and they are only going to get worse in the hours ahead,” he told a press conference.

 

Power has gone out in much of Lower Manhattan. (Image from twitter user@alananewhouse)

At least 13 people have been killed by the disaster, according to AP. Casualties were reported in New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

One woman has been killed by a falling sign in Toronto as high winds reached Canada.

New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced that subway and bus networks are suspended and will remain closed for an unknown period of time. “Service will be restored only when it is safe to do so, and after careful inspections of all equipment, tracks and other sub-systems and bus routes. Even with minimal damage this is expected to be a lengthy process,” the MTA said in a statement.

MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota told WABC Television that subway service could be crippled for “at least a week.”

There have been reports that the main building of Brooklyn's Coney Island Hospital is on fire. Emergency services cannot reach the site, as the streets surrounding the hospital are flooded, Sheepshead Bites news blog reports.

Meanwhile, social networks users on Manhattan's Lower East Side have reported a "huge explosion" that preceded the neighborhood's power going out. Lower Manhattan now appears to be without electricity across the board after an apparent blast at the power transformer.

 

Pedestrians walk past a submerged taxi in Brooklyn, New York, October 29, 2012 as Hurricane Sandy made landfall in the northeastern United States. Hurricane Sandy began battering the U.S. (Reuters/Gary He)

­As the storm pounds the East Coast, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has declared an ‘Alert’ at a power plant in Oyster Creek, New Jersey.

“The plant, currently in a regularly scheduled outage, declared the Alert at approximately 8:45 p.m. EDT due to water exceeding certain high water level criteria in the plant’s water intake structure,” it said in a statement.

 

Fire fighters evaluate the scene of an apartment building which had the front wall collapse due to Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012 in New York, United States. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images/AFP )

 

Flooded cars, caused by Hurricane Sandy, are seen on October 29, 2012, in the Financial District of New York, United States. (AFP Photo / Andrew Burton)

Power outage seen on October 29, 2012 in Manhattan, New York. (AFP Photo / Allison Joyce)

 

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16 dead, over 6mn without power on East Coast

 

A blacked out New York City skyline Monday night, as power goes down for much of the city

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/269487.html

Monster Storm Sandy slammed into the East Coast Monday, killing at least 16 people, hurling a record-breaking 13-foot surge of seawater at New York City and knocking out power to over 6 million people.

The massive storm was downgraded from a hurricane after it barged ashore in southern New Jersey, bringing more than 85-mph winds and a roiling wall of seawater as it moved through New York City. It sent water surging into two major commuter tunnels and into subway stations and tracks. It was unclear how much water had come in.

The 16 deaths were reported in New Jersey, New York, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Some of the victims were killed by falling trees. Police in Toronto said a woman was killed by a falling sign as high winds closed in on Canada's largest city.

The power was out for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and an estimated 6.2 million people altogether across the East, with the full extent of the storm's damage across the region unclear and unlikely to be known until daybreak.

The MTA cut power to some subway tunnels in lower Manhattan, after water came into the stations and tracks. The MTA couldn't say at this point how much damage had been done, and how much time it would take to restore everything to normal.

Consolidated Edison was prompted to cut power to part of the area to avoid storm damage. A large portion of Manhattan's FDR Drive was under water.

Reuters reported late Monday that there had been an explosion at a Consolidated Edison power station on the east side of Manhattan. Despite earlier reports, ConEd said on Twitter no one was trapped inside the plant.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says backup power has been lost at New York University hospital and the city is working to move people out. The mayor delivered a news conference Monday night and said rain was tapering off in the city and the storm surge was expected to recede by midnight. The hospital complex is near the East River in an area of lower Manhattan where flooding has been reported.

The hurricane-turned-post-tropical cyclone, still a powerful, 900-mile-wide hybrid of several weather systems, sent 30-foot-high swells toward New Jersey, and as its eye passed over the shoreline, a surge as high as 10 feet tore into dunes and washed across boardwalks.

The state had evacuated all shore towns ahead of the strike, with Gov. Chris Christie telling residents who ignored the evacuation orders they were "both stupid and selfish."

"[It's a] very intense, very dangerous storm. People will die in this storm," Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said Monday. "So folks will need to mind their families, stay home and hunker down."

Even homes on stilts were threatened by the massive surge, and water was cresting dunes and boardwalks from Delaware's Rehoboth Beach to Jones Beach in New York.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo shut down all major New York bridges and schools, airports and the New York Stock Exchange were closed for Tuesday. North of Atlantic City, the storm was expected to be at maximum force from about 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., with gusts up to 90 mph, especially on ocean-facing beaches. For Long Island, Connecticut, and the rest of coastal New England, the high impact winds could last until midnight, according to The Wall Street Journal’s Weather Journal.

The National Guard was deployed along the densely-populated Atlantic Coast, and airports shut down Monday afternoon as the massive system churned in from the sea, creating 30-foot swells off the Jersey shore. The storm is on a collision course with a winter storm and a cold front, and high tides from a full moon make it a rare hybrid storm that could be felt all the way to the Great Lakes. Still, it could be worse – the storm could be well inland when evening high tide comes, some six hours after landfall.

Sandy has already been blamed for 69 deaths in the Caribbean before it began traveling northward, parallel to the Eastern Seaboard.

In Washington, President Obama urged the millions in Sandy’s path to heed warnings from local and state officials.

“When they tell you to evacuate, you need to evacuate,” Obama said. “Don't delay, don't pause, don't question the instructions that are being given because this is a powerful storm."

States of emergency were declared from North Carolina, where gusty winds whipped steady rain on Sunday, to Connecticut. Delaware ordered mandatory evacuations for coastal communities on Sunday, while Ocean City, Md., also was evacuated.

Tens of thousands of people were ordered to evacuate in anticipation of the storm, including 375,000 in lower Manhattan and other parts of New York City. At least 50,000 were ordered to evacuate in Delaware alone and 30,000 in Atlantic City, N.J., where the city's 12 casinos were forced to shut down for only the fourth time in the 34-year history of legalized gambling there.

Airlines canceled more than 8,962 flights and Amtrak suspended passenger train service across the Northeast for Monday and Tuesday.

New York and Philadelphia shut down their subways, buses and commuter trains Sunday night and announced that schools would be closed on Monday. Boston, Washington and Baltimore also called off school. In Washington and New Jersey, Metrorail and PATH train services were canceled.

In Connecticut, the number of power outages began climbing as the storm moved through the state. In New York City, 250,000 homes were reported to be without power. Fox News

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Sixty million at risk as deadly 'Frankenstorm' Sandy triggers mass evacuations

 

People stand on the Ocean City Music Pier watching heavy surf caused by Hurricane Sandy, on October 28, 2012 in Ocean City, New Jersey (Mark Wilson / Getty Images / AFP)

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/usa/news/hurricane-sandy-us-storm-432/

The ‘Frankenstorm’ Sandy is set to be unprecedented in size once it hits the US mainland Monday night. Tens of millions of people could be affected as the hybrid hurricane wreaks havoc from the East Coast to the Great Lakes on Halloween week.

­Increasingly dire warnings of powerful winds, power outages, widespread flooding, torrential downpours and even snow are being sounded in New York and other major population centers as Hurricane Sandy continues its trek up from the Caribbean.

Forecasters said Sandy is set to transform into "super storm," as the tropical storm merges with a winter storm and a cold front, threatening up to 12 inches of rainfall in some areas and heavy snow inland.

"We're looking at impact of greater than 50 to 60 million people," says Louis Uccellini, head of environmental prediction for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Set to approach the coasts of the mid-Atlantic states by Monday, Sandy is likely to make landfall in the New York metropolitan area, home to about 22 million people, on Monday night.

The Category 1 storm’s sustained winds of 75 mile per hour are nothing extraordinary, but with hurricane force winds reaching out 105 miles from its center and weaker tropical storm-force winds extending 700 miles, forecasters are on edge about its potential impact.

The powerful gusts are expected to stretch as far inland as Pennsylvania.

“These winds are just amazing in terms of their high speed. I cannot recall ever seeing model forecasts of such an expansive areal wind field with values so high for so long a time. We are breaking new ground here,” a National Weather Service meteorologist in the agency’s Washington, DC/Baltimore office said on Saturday night.

"The size of this [Sandy] alone, affecting a heavily populated area, is going to be history making," said Jeff Masters, a hurricane specialist who writes a blog for Weather Underground.

 

This image obtained on October 28, 2012 from the University of Wisconsin'd Space Science and Engineering Center, shows Hurricane Sandy off the US East coast (AFP PHOTO / UW-SSEC)

Those far away from costal areas still have cause for alarm, as forecasters predict that inland flooding from the storm surge could pose a much greater risk than the winds.

Utilities officials have also warned that rain-saturated grounds could send trees plummeting into power lines, leaving residents at home without electricity for days.

Officials have urged residents to stock up on food, water and batteries, with grocery stores being swamped in anticipation of the potential power outages.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered a mandatory evacuation of Gotham's low-lying areas, home to some 375,000 people in total.

"If you don't evacuate, you are not only endangering your life, you are also endangering the lives of the first responders who are going in to rescue you," Bloomberg said at a news conference Sunday.

The city's school system will also be closed on Monday, the mayor continued.

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) had previously noted that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had directed "an orderly shutdown and suspension of all subway, bus and commuter railroad service" beginning at 7 pm Sunday.

Cuomo also said the decision to shut down the state's bridges and tunnels would be made on a case-by-case basis.

The city closed the subways before Hurricane Irene last year, with a Columbia University study predicting that an Irene surge just one foot higher could have shut down lower Manhattan.

Bloomberg's stark warning to residents regarding evacuation might have been spurred by fears that complacency had set in once Hurricane Irene turned out to be far weaker than initially predicted.

Irene, which struck the eastern US in August 2011, was responsible for 56 deaths and $15.6 billion dollars in damage, making it the fifth costliest storm in the country's history.

"The National Weather service believes there is increasing potential for high winds, coastal flooding and heavy rains across a broad area for a lengthy period of time Sunday through Tuesday," said Howard Glaser, director of New York State Operations.

Next door in New Jersey, hundreds of coastal residents started moving inland after Governor Chris Christie declared a state of emergency on Saturday. A dozen Atlantic City casinos were closed following the declaration, as the gambling hub is located on a barrier island. The town’s nearly 40,000 residents will be evacuated Sunday, city officials said.

Atlantic City is likely to flood, as National Weather Service Forecasters in New Jersey predicted “larger mainstream flooding for Tuesday through much of the week.”

 

A man surfs as Hurrican Sandy approaches on October 28, 2012 in Long Beach, New York (Mike Stobe / Getty Images / AFP)

As of 8:00 am EST, Hurricane Sandy was located roughly 395 miles south of New York City and is moving over the Atlantic parallel to the coast at a clip of 14 mph. It is expected to make a sharp westerly turn towards the coast on Sunday night.

Sandy is expected to transform into “a large and intense post-tropical cyclone as it turns toward the northwest,"Environment Canada said early Sunday morning.

"It is possible that this transition could intensify the storm slightly further prior to moving inland somewhere along the New Jersey coast late Monday night or Tuesday morning," the agency continued.

"As many as 23 million Canadians stand to be affected by this storm. That's 70% of the country," meteorologist Mark Robinson at The Weather Network warned on Saturday.

Sandy has already been felt on the campaign trail, as President Barack Obama was forced to cancel campaign stops in Virginia on Monday and Colorado on Tuesday, while Republican contender Mitt Romney canceled all his scheduled events in Virginia and moved to the crucial swing state of Ohio instead, where he is currently neck and neck with the president.

Obama said he was working with state and local officials to make sure they had ample resources to prepare for the potential disaster, which could leave millions of Americans in its wake.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is readying water, meals, blankets and other resources at support bases, the White house announced on Saturday.

 

Carpenters Frank Jiacopello (L) and Ron Skinner put plywood over the doors at the Bally's Casino on the boardwalk as Hurricane Sandy approaches on October 28, 2012 in Atlantic City, New Jersey (Mark Wilson / Getty Images / AFP

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