Millions of residents prepare for what
has been reported to be the biggest
storm ever to hit the mainland United
States.
Hurricane Sandy is continuing to head
towards the US East Coast as
residents make last-minute
preparations.
Sandy could be the biggest storm to
hit the US mainland when it comes
ashore on Monday night, bringing
strong winds and dangerous flooding
to the East Coast, from the mid-
Atlantic states to New England,
forecasters said on Sunday.
The storm could have a brutal impact
on major cities in the target zone such
as Boston, New York, Washington,
Baltimore and Philadelphia, in one of
the most densely populated regions
of the country.
New York City's subway, bus and train
services were suspended on Sunday
evening, bringing the country's
financial centre to a virtual standstill.
Michael Bloomberg, New York
mayor, also ordered public schools to
close on Monday and said that areas
of the city from City Island to Coney
Island to Battery Park City were under
mandatory evacuation.
"We are ordering the evacuation for
the safety of the approximately
375,000 people who live in these
areas," he said.
The hurricane has also reportedly
forced the evacuation of tall ship HMS
Bounty, a replica of the ship famed
for the 1789 mutiny.
US Coast Guard officers told reporters
the 17-member crew of the training
ship, used in the Pirates of the
Caribbean movies, managed to get on
board two life-rafts. The Coast Guard
has dispatched aircraft to bring the
crew to safety.
The crew had reportedly decided to
abandon ship, approximately 145km
off the North Carolina coast, after
taking on water and losing
communications and propulsion. The
vessel was about 250km west of the
eye of the hurricane.
'Life-threatening' storm
Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey,
reporting from New York, said the
entire East Coast was preparing for
the hurricane.
"New York is expected to catch the
brunt of the flooding ... the National
Hurricane Centre has said that the
storm surge flooding could be life-
threatening."
Trading on the floor of major Wall
Street exchanges will be suspended
on Monday, but online operations will
continue, allowing business to
continue almost as usual.
The US government has estimated the
storm could affect 50 million people,
and the storm has already
been disrupting transportation
systems.
President Barack Obama said on
Sunday that Sandy was a "serious and
big storm" and called on East Coast
residents to heed the orders of state
and local officials to protect
themselves from its onslaught.
Obama, speaking after a briefing at
the federal government's storm
response centre in Washington, said
officials had assured him that they had
all the resources they needed in place.
He stressed that "it is important for us
to respond big and to respond fast"
to the hurricane's onslaught.
"We're going to cut through red tape
and we're not going to get bogged
down in a lot of rules," he said.
Obama is having to balance both his
re-election bid and his efforts to stay
on top of the storm's impact - just
nine days before election day.
More than 700 flights, both domestic
and international, were cancelled on
Sunday and nearly 2,500 more were
cancelled for Monday,
FlightAware.com said.
By 7am ET (1100GMT), more than
1,850 people had subscribed to a
special Reddit thread , set up to
share information and tips
between internet users for the best
ways to get through the storm.
Google is also hosting a live
crisismap, featuring locations and
capacities of emergency shelters,
localised weather reports and satellite
imagery.
Officials at the US Nuclear Regulatory
Commission are monitoring effects of
the storm on more than a dozen
nuclear power stations in the affected
area.
"Because of the size of it, we could
see an impact to coastal and inland
plants," an NRC spokesman told
Bloomberg News.
New Jersey's Oyster Creek nuclear
plant, the oldest operating nuclear
power plant in the United States, is in
the projected path of Hurricane
Sandy. Officials say the facility, of a
similar design to Fukushima's No.1
reactor, is currently shut down for
refuelling, but are keeping a watchful
eye for potential flooding.
Hybrid 'super storm'
Forecasters say Sandy is a rare, hybrid
"super storm" created by an Arctic jet
stream wrapping itself around a
tropical storm, possibly causing up to
30cm of rain in some areas, as well as
heavy snowfall inland.
"The size of this alone, affecting a
heavily populated area, is going to be
history making," said Jeff Masters, a
hurricane specialist who writes a blog
on Weather Underground .
Harvard University, in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, cancelled all classes in
what was understood to be the first
time in 40 years, and New Jersey
casinos were ordered to close.
New Jersey officials have shut down
the state's bus and rail systems, and
emergency officials warned of
widespread power outages that could
last for days.
On its current projected track, Sandy
is most likely to make landfall in the
New York/New Jersey area and head
inland to Philadelphia and
Pennsylvania, forecasters said.
Forecasters at the National Hurricane
Centre in Miami said the storm's
impact would be felt far from the
centre.
While Sandy's 120kph winds are not
overwhelming for a hurricane, its
width makes it exceptional. Hurricane-
force winds extend 280km from its
centre, while its lesser tropical storm-
force winds span 1,670km in
diameter.
It was not expected to strengthen, but
was expected to broaden.
At high tide, the storm could bring a
surge of seawater up to 3.4m above
normal levels to Long Island Sound
and New York Harbour.
"Given the large wind field associated
with Sandy, elevated water levels
could span multiple tide cycles,
resulting in repeated and extended
periods of coastal and bayside
flooding," the forecasters said.
Westward turn
Sandy was centred about 685km
southeast of New York City on
Monday morning.
The storm has pushed seawater up
over the barrier islands, known as the
Outer Banks, off North Carolina.
Sandy has been moving over the
Atlantic parallel to the US coast at
about 17kph, but was forecast to
make a tight westward turn towards
the US coast on Sunday night.
Tropical storm conditions were
spreading across the coast of North
Carolina on Sunday morning and
gale-force winds are forecast to begin
affecting Washington, New York and
southern New England later on
Monday.
Sandy has killed at least 66 people as
it made its way through the Caribbean
islands, including 51 in Haiti, mostly
from flash flooding and mudslides,
according to authorities.
Aljazeera
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