AP--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.
A satellite image released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Sunday showed Hurricane Sandy east of Georgia.
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.
“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.’ ”
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.
“Sandy is a large hurricane, and large systems pose multiple hazards for more people than smaller systems of comparable intensity,” Dr. Knabb 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.
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.
And then there is the snow.
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.
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.”
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.)
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.”
City parks and marinas would close at 5 p.m. Sunday, he 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.)
He added that those who ignored the evacuation order were “not going to get arrested, but they are being, I would argue, very selfish.”
Governors across the region have declared emergencies, and federal officials have issued urgent warnings for people to prepare.
Posted By: Siebra Muhammad
Sunday, October 28th 2012 at 5:23PM
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