Hurricane Sandy Strom in New York

On October 28, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency for every county in the state. He also asked for a pre-disaster declaration to better access federal assistance. Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano ordered voluntary evacuations of the South Shore storm surge area, which includes the area south of Sunrise Highway and north of Route 25A and in elevations 15 feet above sea level or less on the North Shore. Shelters were opened at Nassau Community College, Levittown Memorial High School, Locust Valley High School and SUNY Old Westbury. In Suffolk County, mandatory evacuations were ordered for residents of Fire Island and in surge zone areas in Babylon, Islip, Brookhaven, Riverhead, Southampton and Southold. Shelters were opened at Hampton Bays High School, Sachem East High School, and the Brentwood High School Sonderling Building. Most all schools closed in Nassau and Suffolk counties on October 29, including Nassau Community College, Molloy College, Hofstra University and Adelphi University. On October 28, President Obama signed an emergency declaration for the state of New York. The Metro-North Railroad and the Long Island Rail Road suspended service beginning 7 p.m. October 27 through October 29 and possibly October 30. The Tappan Zee Bridge was closed October 29 at 4 p.m. EDT due to wind conditions.

Hurricane Sandy Crisis Response Map by Google

Google's Crisis Response team has constructed an interactive map designed to help make sense of the epic weather phenomenon.

Built upon a foundation of standard Google Maps data, the default presentation of the map offers a view of Hurricane Sandy's path, a precipitation radar overlay (with adjustable translucence), public alert zones, and Red Cross safety shelter locations represented by Google's well-known red location pins.

This is a map with static graphics and an array of click-able location pins displayed. The side bar features a very deep menu containing vital information for local residents and concerned observers. The sidebar controls feature traffic condition overlays, neighborhood flooding zone estimates, satellite-resolution cloud imagery, high wind probability graphics, area webcams offering a peek at real-time conditions, and associated YouTube videos, and a wealth of other information, all interactive and updated as the storm progresses.

Google Hurricane Sandy Crisis Response Map

Sandy is a major storm, previously a hurricane, that has caused extensive flooding, power and transportation outages, and physical damage to the US East Coast and Caribbean. More than 100 deaths have been linked to the storm.

Sandy Storm Nearly 2 Million Without Power in New York State

Of the more than six million American homes that are waking up to darkness on Tuesday, more than 1.9 million of them are in New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Twitter, the largest numbers of them in Long Island and New York City.

 In Manhattan, Ms. Faber said, where pre-emptive power shutdowns by the utility to to keep floodwater from hitting live equipment account for a large number of the 230,000 customers without power, “we could see some restoration within three or four days,” Ms. Faber said.

In New York City and Westchester County, where more than 670,000 Consolidated Edison customers, some of them large buildings with hundreds of residents, were dark Tuesday morning, a spokeswoman for the company, D. Joy Faber, said it would take days to restore power.

“Tidal surge caused considerable damage to equipment,” she said, and assessments need to be done.

“In other areas,” Ms. Faber added, “particularly for Westchester and Staten Island, we’ve got larger things that are going to hamper our restoration efforts,” including closed roads and the fact the utility has to wait until winds die down to send crews up to fix wires and poles.

Current storm information

As of 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC) October 30, Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy is located near 40.5°N 77.0°W, about 90 mi (145 km) west of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and about 15 mi (24 km) east of York, Pennsylvania. Maximum sustained winds are 65 mph (105 km/h), with stronger gusts. Minimum central pressure is 960 mbar (hPa; 28.35 inHg), and the system is moving west northwest at 15 mph (24 km/h).

Hurricane Sandy Storm Forecasted impacts

Gale force winds are expected to continue during the day on October 30, along portions of Mid-Atlantic coast from Virginia to the New England states.

Though water levels have subsided as the storm moved inland, storm surges remain possible along the track, with the largest wave heights of between 2 to 4 feet (0.61 to 1.2 m) from Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, the Delmarva Peninsula and Delaware Bay, and upper and middle Chesapeake Bay.

Rainfall totals of 3 to 8 inches (76 to 200 mm) are expected over the Mid-Atlantic states, including the Delmarva peninsula with isolated maximum amounts of 12 inches (300 mm) possible. Amounts of 1 to 3 inches (25 to 76 mm) with isolated maximum amounts of 5 inches (130 mm) are possible from the southern tier of New York through New England.

Snow accumulations are expected in mountainous areas of the Mid-Atlantic, with the highest totals of between 12 to 18 inches (300 to 460 mm) possible in mountains near the North Carolina/Tennessee border and in the mountains of western Maryland.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University, using a computer model built on power outage data from previous hurricanes, conservatively forecast that 10 million customers along the Eastern Seaboard will lose power from Sandy.

The Ocean City Pier collapsed into the water by sandy

The mayor issued evacuation orders for Ocean City’s most flood-prone neighborhoods, which are likely to be inundated. Town officials urged those who did not evacuate to stay put on Monday 29/10/12.

Sandy Storm Patients Evacuated From NYU Langone

Monday evening A backup power system failed at one of the New York City’s premier medical centers on Monday night, forcing the evacuation of all patients to nearby hospitals amid the storm’s strong gusts, officials said.

The medical center, NYU Langone, began transporting all 215 patients at the hospital to other facilities on Monday evening. Read more

Hurricane Sandy more mhan 9,000 Flights Canceled

The tarmac at Newark International Airport on Monday.

Hurricane Sandy has forced airlines to cancel roughly 9,000 flights, stranding travelers and raising the prospect that air travel might not be back to normal until next week.

FlightAware, a data provider based in Houston, said that more than 6,800 flights were canceled on Monday. It said that 1,300 flights had been canceled on Sunday, and that many more were being dropped for Tuesday, when high winds and heavy rain are still expected to buffet the East Coast.

FlightAware said that Philadelphia International Airport led the way in cancellations on Monday, grounding over 1,200 flights. The three major airports in the New York City area each canceled around 1,000 flights on Monday, the data service said.

Kate Hanni, the director of FlyersRights.org, a passenger rights group, said that given high fuel costs, extra seats were hard to find on most airlines even before the storm.

“The airlines have cut back so much on staffing, and some are flying less, and I think it could take well over a week for them to reschedule all the passengers, ” she said. “We’ve got a huge problem.”

She said her group’s phone hotline was already flooded with calls from passengers who could not get through to the airlines, whose customer service numbers have been overwhelmed by the high volume of calls.

US Airways, which has substantial East Coast operations, said it canceled 1,641 flights on Monday, or nearly half the normal daily total for its entire system. It said it would shut down all flights to and from Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington on both Monday and Tuesday.

Delta and United said they would resume flights Tuesday around midday. American Airlines and American Eagle suspended flights at airports along the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions from 10 p.m. Sunday to about midday Wednesday.

Waiting it out at Newark International Airport.

American warned that the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy may force some additional delays and cancellations of scheduled flights beyond Wednesday.

Most airlines are allowing travelers to make changes with paying fees – and are granting refunds in some cases — for itineraries potentially impacted by the storm.

The best way to make flight changes is on airline Web sites. Airlines are also asking travelers not to go to airports for extended waits.

Given the storm’s huge expanse of rain and winds, some flights were canceled as far inland as Buffalo and Pittsburgh.

Hurricane Sandy in NEW JERSEY

Nearly 2.2 million customers were without power. Authorities in Morris County said two people died after a tree fell on their car Monday evening in Mendham Township.

Hundreds of people may need to be moved after reports that a levee broke in Moonachie, N.J. early Tuesday. Water as deep as 6 feet has submerged parts of the town.
Sandy Hook reached a record high watermark of more than 13 feet.

By mid-afternoon Monday, all three ways into and out of Ocean City were closed, and Atlantic City was cut off, meaning that those who had not left already were likely stuck for the duration of the storm.

Flooding forced officials to close the Garden State Parkway in both directions south of the Atlantic City Expressway at Exit 38.

To find shelters by county, go here. Officials say shelters are set up in 18 counties to accommodate roughly 12,000 people and, if needed, the state will mobilize five shelters to house another 5,000 people. For a list of county OEM coordinators, go here.

Christie said of the state's 590 school districts statewide, about 350 districts were closed on Monday, and about 250 of those would also be closed on Tuesday. The decisions were being made at the county level, so parents are urged to check locally.

Tolls were suspended on the northbound Garden State Parkway  from Cape May to the Driscoll Bridge  and on the full length of the westbound Atlantic City Expressway to assist with evacuations. The suspension remains in effect indefinitely, officials said.

All New Jersey Transit lines remain suspended through Tuesday. PATH Train service is suspended indefinitely, the Port Authority said.

Hurricane Sandy in NEW YORK CITY

Hundreds of thousands of Con Ed customers were without power Monday night, including 38,000 in the Bronx, 71,000 in Brooklyn, 193,000 in Manhattan, 74,000 in Queens and 76,000 in Staten Island. Con Ed shut off power preemptively to residents in Brighton Beach and in lower Manhattan.

 

At least six storm-related deaths were reported, including a teenage girl who was found near the shore on Staten Island. A 29-year old man in Flushing, Queens was killed in bed when a tree crashed into his home and a woman in South Richmond Hill, Queens died after coming into contact with wires in a flooded area. A man in his 50s was also found dead in a flooded lower Manhattan basement, authorities said.

Con Ed's steam station on East 14th Street was under water Monday night.

A record-high 32.5-foot wave was recorded in New York harbor.

Hundreds of thousands of people live in New York City's primary evacuation zone.

Monday morning about 3,100 people were staying in 76 city shelters. Locations can be found on the city's website or by calling 311. 

The city's 1.1 million-pupil school system, the largest in the nation, was closed Monday and Tuesday.
City parks are closed.

The city is under a high wind warning from 6 a.m. Monday to 6 p.m. Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.

PATH Train service remains suspended indefinitely, the Port Authority said.

Report on Hurricane Sandy 30th October 2012

0406GMT: NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg says storm surge in the city has peaked and is going down.

But “power outages and other serious issues remain,”: he warns.

0400GMT: The US Coast Guard publishes an impressive photo of the HMS Bounty tall ship almost completely submerged by vicious seas, on its Twitter page @USCG.

0355GMT: Delaware’s health and social services department says more than 34,200 people without power in that state. No reported deaths.

0349GMT: The New York city fire department warns netizens about “misinformation” being spread about Sandy.

“You can get reliable info from @NYCMayorsOffice, @NotifyNYC and us,” it tweets.

0344GMT: Death toll from Sandy in US and Canada rises to at least 13.

Among these, one man in New York city was crushed by a tree, another person in Pennsylvania died when a house collapsed, and a woman in West Virginia was killed when her car collided with a cement truck.

0341GMT: Back to my colleague Veronique Dupont in New York.

“Even the traffic lights don’t work,” she says. The only vehicles on the streets of lower Manhattan are police cars and some generator vans.

A few people are out — including Todd Stanley, who came out of his home to see what was happening after hearing a loud noise. “There’s less wind and rain than Hurricane Irene, so I’m not scared,” he says.

0322GMT: New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo says on Twitter that nearly 1.6 million New Yorkers are now without power.

0318GMT: Another widely reported rumour denied — power company Con Edison tweets that none of its employees are trapped in a building.

0314GMT: Water gushing down residential areas in parts of New Jersey, as seen live on US television.

0303GMT: Alert declared at Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in New Jersey “due to water exceeding certain high water level criteria in the plant’s water intake structure,” US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) says.

This is still a low-level alert, and the NRC predicts water levels will start abating in the next few hours.

0256GMT: Weather Channel says up to 14 inches of snow reported in Tucker County, West Virginia

0237GMT: Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy urges thousands of residents of coastal areas to flee immediately, says Sandy has catastrophic potential.

“I was concerned all along about the potential destructive impact of this last high tide, and unfortunately the best information we have confirms my worst fears,” he says.

0225GMT: New York mayor Michael Bloomberg reassures the troops: “Things have gotten tough, but we will get through this together, as New York City always does,” he tweets.

0217GMT: The New York Stock Exchange denies widespread rumours that its trading floor is flooded.

“There is no water in the building or in surrounding streets,” it says on its official Twitter account.

0210GMT: Storm surge cripples power stations on Manhattan island, leaving 250,000 homes without electricity, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg says.

0203GMT: People on Twitter are starting to lash out at accounts using Hurricane Sandy to make jokes.

Many of these accounts (@AHurricaneSandy, @XHurricaneSandy…) have garnered thousands of followers, but as Sandy lashes the east coast, netizens are starting to tire of their tweets.

The hurricane sandy account was funny at first, but now it’s people’s lives and homes that are being lost and it’s starting to get ignorant,” @SamanthaKnapp2 tweets.

0146GMT: My colleague Michael Mathes reports that Mitt Romney will attend a storm relief event in Ohio on Tuesday.

0136GMT: Storm has killed at least 3 people in US so far — due to falling trees.

0125GMT: Floodwaters pouring into lower Manhattan, flooding subways and car parks.

0123GMT: Veronique Dupont reports from an eerie lower Manhattan.

“There is no one in the streets, and all you can hear is the wind and police sirens. The only lights are those of the police cars. I’ve never experienced this in 10 years in New York,” she says.

0110GMT: Transport authorities in New York say on Twitter that “up to four feet” of seawater is entering subway tunnels.

0108GMT: Joke? New Jersey Governor Chris Christie tweets that “if conditions are not safe on Wednesday for Trick or Treating, I will sign an Executive Order rescheduling #Halloween.”

0100GMT: A man has been killed in New York, apparently by a fallen tree, firefighters say.

0058GMT: All of lower Manhattan is in the dark as the electricity goes down, my colleague Veronique Dupont reports.

0055GMT: The CNN reporter in Atlantic City is now wading knee-deep in water, on what looks like the same street he was reporting from earlier.

0052GMT: A quick recap of the situation so far:

- Superstorm Sandy has made landfall in New Jersey, packing winds of 80 miles (130 kilometers) an hour.

-  Hundreds of thousands of residents have fled to higher ground. Storm surges reported in New York harbor, heavy snows in West Virginia and North Carolina, and heavy winds and driving rain from Washington to Boston.

- Cities along the coast from Boston and New York down to Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington have ground to a halt with trains, buses and subway services suspended, schools shut and workers staying home.

- A replica of the HMS Bounty that starred in Hollywood movies has sunk in towering waves off North Carolina. The Coast Guard rescued 14 crew but another is found “unresponsive” and the captain is still missing.

- State-by-state tallies by US media show millions already without power

0045GMT: Stephane Jourdain is in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington DC.

He says there are more rescue vehicles on the rainy roads than there are private cars.

0035GMT: Transport authorities in New York tweet a photo taken by a surveillance camera showing floodwaters in a closed tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

0028GMT: The New York Mayor’s Office reminds people to say inside.

“Do not go outside. Being outside is incredibly dangerous,” it tweets.

Authorities had earlier issued a mandatory evacuation order for 375,000 people at risk from a storm surge predicted to be over 11 feet (3.5 meters), but the vast majority decided to brave it out.

0020GMT: TV presenter Piers Morgan reports from his office in New York.

“The buckled crane has been swaying wildly in last few minutes (been watching from my office). Will surely snap off eventually,” he says on Twitter.

“If #Sandy is rocking my 7th floor #CNN office this roughly & noisily, god knows what it’s like for people living/working higher up,” he tweeted earlier.

0010GMT: My colleague Stephane Jourdain is braving the storm in Washington DC, and he says big tree branches are littering the pavements.

One driver stops and offers to take a passer-by home, as heavy winds pummel the area he’s in.

0004GMT: BREAKING – Superstorm Sandy has made landfall on the New Jersey coast, an official says

2358GMT: The US Coast Guard has posted an impressive video on YouTube showing how they rescued 14 HMS Bounty crew members from life rafts in the Atlantic Ocean.

Filmed from a helicopter that is hovering above the choppy sea, rescuers are seen being lifted down into the water and swimming to the stricken crew members, who are then hoisted up to safety.

One other crew member was later found “unresponsive”, and one person remains missing.

2350GMT: Perhaps an ironic casualty — the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies said earlier that Sandy has forced the postponement of an event scheduled Tuesday on “avoiding catastrophic climate change.”

2343GMT: Impressive photo doing the rounds on Twitter of a 4-story building in New York whose facade has completely come off. Lots of firefighters at the scene.

2338GMT: Wind speeds inside Sandy have dropped slightly, the National Hurricane Center says, but they still remain hurricane-force at around 85 miles per hour (140 kph).

2334GMT: Meanwhile, a Canadian utility company called Hydro-Quebec has sent dozens of electricians to the US state of Vermont to help restore power after Sandy whips through.

2329GMT: Back in New York, two police cars on 34th street — one of the big thoroughfares in Manhattan — are retreating away from the river as the water comes in, Timothy Witcher reports.

2322GMT: JUST IN – Sandy is due to make landfall within the next hour along the New Jersey coast, the US National Hurricane Center says.

2321GMT: In Chicago, authorities have issued a lakeshore flood warning.

2314GMT: My colleague Timothy Witcher reports that the East River has risen over the bank at 34th Street in Manhattan and has already come past 1st Avenue, which is about 50 metres from the river.

2307GMT: In the small state of Delaware, which is awaiting Sandy’s landfall, authorities have banned driving altogether — except for emergency vehicles.

2300GMT: Meanwhile, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced on Twitter that some buildings near the dangling crane have been evacuated.

2256GMT: Another colleague — Michael Mathes — is currently following Mitt Romney.

The Republican challenger was briefed about Sandy over the phone by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, his senior advisor says.

2244GMT: He has also been to the “Ducktown Tavern and Liquors” – the last open bar for those desperate for a drink.

There, around 30 people — many of them police officers — are camped out around two long bars with beers and large plates of chicken wings and other comfort food.

“We’re going to man out the storm,” says bar owner John Exadaktilos.

2239GMT: My colleague Sebastian Smith in Atlantic City is on the beach right now.

“There are many rows of waves coming all the time. The sea level is already well above where it should be,” he says.

Wooden cabins that are part of a hotel complex are already flooded and streets are nearly empty, he adds.

“Sometimes it’s hard to walk.”

2235GMT: One missing crew member of storm-stricken HMS Bounty  found ‘unresponsive’, one still missing, Coast Guard says.

2229GMT: Retailer Gap doesn’t miss a beat — and promotes online shopping during the storm.

“All impacted by Sandy, stay safe! We’ll be doing lots of Gap.com shopping today. How about you?” it tweets on its official account.

2221GMT: People have posted more than 270,000 photos with the #sandy hashtag on photo-sharing platform Instagram.

One shows a resident hunkering down with a flashlight, another shows a person next to the ocean getting lashed by fierce waves, and yet another depicts an uprooted tree.

2212GMT: In amidst all the fear and concern, some humour. @someecards tweets  “the sexiest possible way to measure the progression of Hurricane Sandy.”

Pictures of actress Olivia Newton-John when she played Sandy in the film “Grease” are posted on a graphic charting the hurricane’s progress, right on the storm’s path.

2206GMT: The CNN reporter in Atlantic City is having trouble staying up as winds get worse. The street he is reporting live from is completely flooded.

2204GMT: He also urges employees to try and go to work on Tuesday, “if they can do that safely.”

“Because now is when NYers need us most,” he is quoted as saying on the mayor’s office Twitter page.

2201GMT: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says two people received police summons for attempting to go surfing in the hurricane seas.

He says the would-be surfers risked the lives of emergency personnel.

2157GMT: He also lashes out at the mayor of Atlantic City.

“For some reason, the mayor in his initial conversations with the public told them he didn’t want his people leaving Atlantic City,” he said.

“So you have people staying. You have self-sheltering in their homes or sheltering in city shelters there, one which is literally a block away from the bay in a school which is now flooded completely.”

2150GMT: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie again — this time live on TV — telling people evacuations are no longer possible.

“For those of you who are on the barrier island who decided it was a better idea to wait this out than to evacuate and for those elected officials who decided to ignore my admonition, this is now your responsibility,” he says. 

“If you’re still able to hear me, we need you to hunker down and get to the highest point possible in the dwelling that you’re in. We will not be able to come and help you until daylight tomorrow.”

2145GMT: Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley has good news and bad news.

“The bad news is that the storm is becoming stronger in her center with 90 mile per hour (145 kilometer per hour) winds,” he tells reporters.

“The good news is that she is moving faster… The hope would be that she continues to move fast and moves on from Maryland and passes over without stopping and hanging out and beating on us for 24 to 36 hours.”

2140GMT: Christopher Christie, Governor of New Jersey, says Sandy is moving “twice as fast” as originally thought.

“We are now expecting landfall in AC (Atlantic City) in the next hour,” he tweets.

2136GMT:  ”Safe passage to us all as we steer thru Sandy… We r all in it together. Tweet u when I can…”, says Whoopi Goldberg on her Twitter account.

2129GMT: The National Hurricane Center says Sandy moving “quickly” towards southern New Jersey and Delaware.

It warns of a “life-threatening storm surge and hurricane-force winds.” Landfall still expected early evening.

2125GMT: Around 1,900 members of the National Guard have been activated, 60,000 more are on standby, as are 140 helicopters, the Pentagon has said.

2120GMT: West Virginia has declared a state of emergency in anticipation of as much as two feet (60 centimeters) of heavy snow from Hurricane Sandy.

2116GMT:  @MichelleObama speaks out on Twitter: “Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by Hurricane Sandy. In times of crisis, we pull together as one American family”, she tweets.

2112GMT: Authorities have ordered hundreds of thousands of residents in cities and towns from New England to North Carolina to evacuate their homes and seek shelter.

In New York, a crane on top of a 90-storey New York apartment block has been left precariously dangling due to strong winds — and the storm is nowhere near its peak.

NY1 television says two fire department engineers are going up the skyscraper to assess the damage.

2100GMT: ‘Frankenstorm’ is expected to make landfall early evening in southern New Jersey, the National Hurricane Center says.

But it has already left around 316,500 people without power, the Department of Energy reports, one-third of them in New York and another 25 percent in New Jersey.

Report on Hurricane Sandy, which is barreling towards the US east coast amid warnings of an “unprecedented” threat to lives and property. Courtesy AFP

Hurricane Sandy Millions Lose Power Amid Flooding

Hurricane Sandy is a late-season tropical cyclone that has affected Jamaica, Cuba, the Bahamas, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and the eastern seaboard of the United States, and is currently affecting the area south of the Great Lakes Region of the United States, and Eastern Canada. It is the the largest Atlantic tropical system on record.

Sandy's impact on the United States stretched from Virginia to New England with tropical storm force winds stretching far inland and significant mountain snows in West Virginia. The cyclone brought a record-breaking storm surge to New York City on the evening of October 29, with numerous streets and tunnels flooded in Lower Manhattan and other areas of the city.

On October 29, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recommended people caught in Hurricane Sandy use social media like Twitter and Facebook to communicate if they have no other means of communication.

Due to flooding and other storm-related problems, Amtrak cancelled all Acela Express, Northeast Regional, Keystone Service and Shuttle services on October 30.
More than 13,000 flights were canceled across the U.S. on October 29, and more than 3,500 were called off October 30. Amtrak cancelled all of its Northeast Corridor service, in addition to some other lines.

Nearly 7.1 million customers lost power across the eastern half of the country across 13 states and Washington, D.C.. About half were in New York and New Jersey.


Storm damage was projected at $10 billion to $20 billion, meaning it could prove to be one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.


As of early October 30, thirteen deaths were reported in the states of New Jersey, New York, West Virginia Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Some of the victims were killed by falling trees. 

More than 1,500 FEMA personnel are along the East Coast working to support disaster preparedness and response operations, including search and rescue, situational awareness, communications and logistical support. In addition, 28 teams comprised of 294 FEMA Corps members are pre-staged to support Sandy responders. Three federal urban search and rescue task forces are positioned in the Mid-Atlantic and ready to deploy as needed.