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