A raging storm surge, high tides, wicked winds and driving rain have started pounding the northeast coast of the United States as millions of people hunker down for what could prove to be one of the most fearsome tempests on record in the country.
Mass transit in several cities — including New York — is shut down, more than 7,000 airline flights are cancelled, schools are closed, the floor of the world's biggest stock exchange is silent and the U.S. presidential candidates have had to cancel campaign events.
In all, 50 million people are threatened as Hurricane Sandy is expected to make landfall along the New Jersey coast Monday night and then collide with two other weather systems.
That's anticipated to create a superstorm in the most heavily populated corridor of the U.S., with the potential for havoc on an area stretching more than 1,250 kilometres from the East Coast to the Great Lakes.
"The latest model guidance has Sandy hitting the U.S. northeast this evening, with the official track showing landfall along the New Jersey and Delaware coast," CBC meteorologist Jay Scotland said.
"The biggest threats to life in the U.S. northeast will be first the surge, with coastal flooding, then the wind — loss of power for millions — followed by inland flooding from rain and, just west of the Appalachians, heavy snow."
Scotland said what's particular about Hurricane Sandy, currently classified as a Category 1 storm centered 487 kilometres southeast of New York City, are its immense size, the number of people it will impact and a mass of cold air that could enhance precipitation.
"Hurricane force winds extend as much as 300 kilometres outward from the storm's centre and tropical force winds extend up to over 800 kilometres. With this large of a wind field, widespread power outages will likely be the most notable impact from Sandy, with millions potentially left without power — which could remain out for days," Scotland said.
Transit shut down
Forecasters are warning that the New York area could get the worst of it — a three-metre wall of water.
New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Baltimore moved to shut down their subways, buses and trains, and said schools would be closed on Monday. Boston also called off school. And all non-essential government offices closed in Washington, D.C.
The New York Stock Exchange said it will be shut down Monday, including electronic trading. Nasdaq is shutting the Nasdaq Stock Market and other U.S. exchanges and markets it owns, although its exchanges outside the U.S. will operate as scheduled.
Several companies have postponed reporting their earnings as a result, including Pfizer Inc. and Thomson Reuters.
High winds blow sea foam onto Jeanette's Pier in Nags Head, North Carolina, one of several states that declared states of emergency. (Gerry Broome/AP) "The time for preparing and talking is about over," U.S. Federal Emergency Management Administrator Craig Fugate said Sunday as the hurricane made its way up the Atlantic. "People need to be acting now."
As rain from the leading edges of the monster hurricane began to fall over the U.S. Northeast, hundreds of thousands of people from Maryland to Connecticut were ordered to evacuate low-lying coastal areas, including 375,000 in lower Manhattan and other parts of New York City, 50,000 in Delaware and 30,000 in Atlantic City, N.J., where the city's 12 casinos were forced to shut down for only the fourth time ever.
"I think this one's going to do us in," said Mark Palazzolo, who boarded up his bait-and-tackle shop in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., with the same wood he used in past storms, crossing out the names of Hurricanes Isaac and Irene and spray-painting "Sandy" next to them.
"I got a call from a friend of mine from Florida last night who said, 'Mark, get out! If it's not the storm, it'll be the aftermath. People are going to be fighting in the streets over gasoline and food.' "
The CBC's David Common, reporting from Manhattan, said the big problem is there isn't necessarily rainfall but the storm surge and resulting flooding.
"Streets flooding, homes flooding, rivers running over their banks and spilling off into other neighbourhoods — that's the big concern," Common said. "That's why we've seen these mandatory coastal evacuations and mandatory evacuations in the city for low-lying areas."
Shows on Broadway and at the New York's Carnegie Hall were cancelled Sunday night and Monday, amid the risk that theatregoers would be stranded by the transit shutdown.
Winds hit 139 km/h
Sandy, whose sustained winds intensified to 139 km/h as of Monday morning at 8 a.m. ET, was blamed for 65 deaths in the Caribbean before it began travelling northward, parallel to the eastern seaboard.
After it makes landfall, it's expected to cut across into Pennsylvania and travel up through New York State on Wednesday.
Forecasters said the combination of Sandy and the two other weather systems could bring close to 300 millimetres of rain in places, a potentially lethal storm surge of one to three metres across many of the coastal areas, and punishing winds that could cause widespread power outages that last for days. The storm could also dump up to 60 centimetres of snow in Kentucky, North Carolina and West Virginia.
The storm surge will be exacerbated by a full moon, which elevates tides and ocean waves.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned: "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. This is a serious and dangerous storm."
New Jersey's famously blunt Gov. Chris Christie was less polite: "Don't be stupid. Get out."
A woman runs off a sand dune near Cape Hatteras Lighthouse on Hatteras Island Sunday, as the storm worked its way north. (Steve Earley/The Virginian-Pilot/AP) The United Nations said it would close its headquarters in Manhattan on Monday and cancelled all meetings there.
In Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama promised the government would "respond big and respond fast" after the storm hits.
"My message to the governors as well as to the mayors is anything they need, we will be there, and we will cut through red tape. We are not going to get bogged down with a lot of rules," he said.
Obama cancelled a campaign event in Virginia on Monday, as did his rival Mitt Romney on Sunday.
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