This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/us/east-coast-braces-for-severe-storm-surge.html

The article has changed 14 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 7 Version 8
East Coast Prepares for Storm’s Arrival East Coast Prepares for Storm’s Arrival
(about 1 hour later)
As the National Hurricane Center warned on Sunday of a “life-threatening storm surge” that could cause record-breaking coastal flooding, tens of millions of residents from Delaware to southern New England braced for the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy. The authorities across the region ordered the evacuation of many low-lying areas, including parts of New York City, and the shutdown of subway, bus and railroad services in New York and New Jersey. Hurricane Sandy, a menacing monster of a storm that forecasters said would bring “life-threatening” flooding, churned toward some of the nation’s most densely populated areas on Sunday, prompting widespread evacuations and the shutdown of New York City’s transit system.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg urged residents in low-lying areas to be out by 7 p.m., the same time that transit service would be suspended. Officials warned that the hurricane, creeping north from the Caribbean, where it killed more than 60 people, could disrupt life in the Northeast for days. New York went into emergency mode, ordering more than 370,000 people evacuated in low-lying communities from Coney Island in Brooklyn to Battery Park City in Manhattan and giving 1.1 million schoolchildren a day off on Monday.
“We’re going to have a lot of impact, starting with the storm surge,” said Craig Fugate, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “Think, ‘Big.’ ” The subway closing was to darken every one of the city’s 468 stations at 7 p.m., for the second time in 14 months. But as construction workers put plywood over air vents on Sunday afternoon to prevent flooding in the tunnels, the closing this time seemed more ominous. The shutdown before Tropical Storm Irene last year began at noon on a Saturday, and service resumed before the workweek started on Monday. This time, officials warned, it might be Wednesday before trains were running again.
Though the hurricane is not expected to make landfall until sometime late Monday, coastal regions will be hit by gale-force winds, heavy rain and possible flooding as early as Sunday, said Rick Knabb, the director of the National Hurricane Center. Tropical storm conditions were being felt in parts of North Carolina on Sunday, though the storm was 250 miles off the coast. President Obama, who attended a briefing with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Washington, called Hurricane Sandy “a big and serious storm.” He said federal officials were “making sure that we’ve got the best possible response to what is going to be a big and messy system.”
“Sandy is a large hurricane, and large systems pose multiple hazards for more people than smaller systems of comparable intensity,” Dr. Knabb said. “My main message to everybody involved is that we have to take this seriously,” the president said.
Forecasters warned that it could ravage areas far beyond the projected trajectory, and they urged people to heed evacuation calls and to prepare for the worst. The National Hurricane Center said it expected the storm to swing inland, putting the center of the storm near the mid-Atlantic coast by Monday night. The hurricane center reported that the storm was packing sustained winds of almost 75 miles an hour.
In its latest report, the Hurricane Center said the storm surge could be as high as 11 feet above normal along Long Island Sound and Raritan Bay — a significantly higher forecast than in previous reports — and warned that major flooding could occur across a broad area of the East Coast. Forecasters also expected torrential rains in some regions, which would add to the flooding. The center said it expected a storm surge of up to 11 feet in New York Harbor, Long Island Sound and Raritan Bay in New Jersey — significantly higher than previous forecasts and significantly above the levels recorded during Tropical Storm Irene last year. Forecasters said the water could top 8 feet from Ocean City, Md., to the border between Connecticut and Rhode Island. They predicted the waves would rise to 6 feet on the south shore of Cape Cod.
And then there is the snow. Forecasters also warned that rain that could saturate the ground and that trees could tumble across roads or onto power lines.
As Hurricane Sandy approaches land, it will be drawn into a system known as a midlatitude trough, a severe winter storm that is moving across the country from the west. A burst of arctic air is expected to sweep down through the Canadian Plains just as they are converging. That could lead to several feet of snow in West Virginia and Kentucky and lighter amounts in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Temperatures could drop into the mid-20s. From North Carolina to Connecticut, officials declared emergencies and directed residents to leave areas near the shore. Delaware ordered coastal communities evacuated by 8 p.m. Sunday. In New Jersey, gamblers scrambled to play a few last rounds of blackjack before leaving the Atlantic City casinos under orders from Gov. Chris Christie. He also ordered residents to leave barrier islands from Sandy Hook to Cape May.
In announcing the transit shutdown, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said it was unsafe to operate trains in high winds. He also said the closing was intended as a signal to discourage New York-area residents from being “up and about.” Forecasters said the hurricane was a strikingly powerful storm that cut a wide path of potential destruction. The tropical storm warning from the National Weather Service covered more than 580 nautical miles, all the way to Bermuda, and forecasters said they expected high-altitude winds to whip every state east of the Mississippi River.
The subway system will begin to curtail service at 7 p.m., and the transit authority’s railroads, Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road, will begin their final trips at the same time, some buses may remain in service until 9 p.m. (It takes about eight hours for the subways to be shut down, but only six for the bus system.) In beachfront towns from North Carolina to New Jersey, the surf was spitting, and crews were rushing to build sand walls in places where the beaches had been rebuilt after Tropical Storm Irene. The concern about the power of the storm was heightened because a system known as a midlatitude trough — which often causes severe winter storms — was moving across the country from the west. It was expected to draw in Hurricane Sandy, giving it added energy.
“The transportation system is the lifeblood of the New York City region, and suspending all service is not a step I take lightly,” Mr. Cuomo said. “But keeping New Yorkers safe is the first priority, and the best way to do that is to make sure they are out of harm’s way before gale-force winds can start wreaking havoc on trains and buses.” A burst of arctic air is expected to sweep down through the Canadian Plains just as the two storms converge. That could lead to several feet of heavy, wet snow in West Virginia and lighter amounts in Pennsylvania and Ohio that could bring down trees and power lines if already chilly temperatures drop below freezing.
Joseph J. Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said he expected the transit systems to restore at least some service about 12 hours after the storm passes over the area, but he warned that the city could be without transit for as many as two full working days. “I do think Monday and Tuesday are going to be difficult days,” Mr. Lhota said. The full moon on Monday could cause even greater flooding, because tides will be at their peak.
He said that if sustained winds reached 39 miles per hour, drivers on the bridges would be required to slow down. At 60 m.p.h., they would be closed to traffic. Outbound trips on the authority’s paratransit service, Access-A-Ride, were scheduled only until noon on Sunday; return trips would continue until 5 p.m. The possibility of a higher surge was one reason that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York ordered mandatory evacuations in low-lying areas, just as he did before Tropical Storm Irene. One city official said there was particular concern about Con Edison’s Lower Manhattan infrastructure, noting that if the storm surge washed over the bulkheads, it could damage the utility’s electrical and steam networks. If the surge runs as high as forecast, Con Ed will shut off two electrical networks in Lower Manhattan, known as the Fulton and Beekman networks, the official said.
A full-scale closing of the subways, which run 24 hours a day, had never been ordered until August 2011, as Tropical Storm Irene approached. That storm toppled trees onto the tracks of the commuter rails, flooded train yards and led to millions of dollars in lost fares for the authority, which submitted $65 million in insurance claims this year to recover those losses. The closing this year could prove even more devastating. “We’re looking at two networks in Lower Manhattan,” the official said. “If storm comes to a point where it’s going to endanger the infrastructure, they’d rather save the system than make the system broke.” The official added: “It all depends on the surge; if it goes to what it’s predicted for, that’s when it will happen.”
Mayor Bloomberg said that city offices would be open Monday and that “city employees should make every effort to report to their jobs on Monday morning.” The potential loss of power, the official said, led to the decision to evacuate New York Downtown Hospital. And for residents who do not need medical care — but who do not live in buildings with generators — longer power failures are a concern.
City parks and marinas would close at 5 p.m. Sunday, he said. “The evacuation is easy, it’s the recovery and sustainment of that that’s harder,” the city official said.
He called for a mandatory evacuation of Zone A, low-lying areas that include the Rockaways, Coney Island and Red Hook after he revised his assessment of the storm’s potential impact. He said about 375,000 people would have to evacuate. (A guide to those areas can be found here.) The official said a task force had been set up to deal with downed trees. It comprises officials from several city agencies, including the city’s Office of Emergency Management and the departments of fire, parks, police, environmental protection and transportation.
He added that those who ignored the evacuation order were “not going to get arrested, but they are being, I would argue, very selfish.” As for the subway shutdown, Mr. Bloomberg said that if the Metropolitan Transportation Authority had not suspended service, but instead had left itself vulnerable to the storm, the city would have risked being without its mass transit network for even longer.
Governors across the region have declared emergencies, and federal officials have issued urgent warnings for people to prepare. “They do have to make sure that their equipment doesn’t get damaged,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “Otherwise we would not have subway trains when this is over or buses when it’s over.”
From Plymouth, Me., to Cape Hatteras, N.C., residents boarded up windows; stocked up on water, batteries and food; and prepared to hunker down. Airlines encouraged people with flights scheduled in the next few days to change their plans and waived cancellation fees. Though airports remained open, major airlines including Delta, United and American, announced that flights would be canceled. Joseph J. Lhota, the chairman of the authority, said he expected the transit systems to restore at least some service about 12 hours after the storm ended. But he warned that the city could be without mass transit for as many as two full work days. “I do think Monday and Tuesday are going to be difficult days,” Mr. Lhota said.
American Airlines said it canceled 140 flights on Sunday and would cancel an additional 1,431 flights from Monday through Wednesday.
Amtrak has also shut down train service to parts of the East Coast, including between Washington and New York.
At supply stores across the region, generators and other goods were snapped up in preparation for the possibility of extended power failures.
Tens of thousands of people who live on the state’s densely populated barrier islands — from Sandy Hook to Cape May — were evacuating on Sunday in compliance with an order issued by Gov. Chris Christie.
The evacuation included the 40,000 residents of Atlantic City, where the casinos closed at 3 p.m. on Sunday. All New Jersey Transit service, including buses and rail and light rail lines, were to be suspended starting at 4 p.m.
In Rehoboth Beach, Del., a long line of cars snaked out of town, adhering to the evacuation order announced Saturday night. But some families stopped to take one last picture of the pounding surf.
“It’s just magnificent looking at this,” said Lori Watson, a Rehoboth Beach resident who lives several miles inland and was not evacuating.
Federal officials, in a briefing with reporters on Sunday, could not say for certain where the impact would be worst. Dr. Knabb of the National Hurricane Center said the storm is most likely to come ashore sometime late Monday between Long Island and the Delmarva Peninsula. But he said the storm’s effects would stretch far up and down the coast and deep inland.

Reporting was contributed by Matt Flegenheimer and Colin Moynihan from New York; Brian Stelter from Rehoboth Beach, Del.; Jon Hurdle from Philadelphia; Stacey Stowe from Yonkers; and Angela Macropoulos from Long Island.