Hurricane Sandy churned through the Atlantic Ocean on Monday en route to what forecasters agreed would be a devastating landfall that is expected to paralyze life for millions of people in more than a half-dozen states in the Northeast, with widespread power failures, a halt in transportation systems and extensive evacuations.
The huge storm, which has been picking up speed over water, was producing sustained winds of 90 miles per hour by 11 a.m., up from 75 m.p.h. on Sunday night, an indication of continual strengthening. Earlier on Monday, the center of Hurricane Sandy made its expected turn toward the New Jersey coast. The National Hurricane Center said the center of the storm was now moving north northwest at 18 m.p.h.
Residents and emergency management officials have been keeping a wary eye on the hurricane’s expected path, bracing for the impact in states like Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
But hours before landfall, streets were already swamped, structures destroyed and waterways transformed as the storm’s outlying sections pushed wind and water ahead of it. In Maryland, the normally placid Sligo Creek in the suburb of Takoma Park turned into a roaring torrent. In the state’s Ocean City, the boardwalk pier was “significantly damaged” overnight, said Mike Levy, a public information officer for the Police Department there. The evacuated south end of the resort town, he said, “is getting subjected to quite a bit of flooding.”
Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland gave an unvarnished assessment of the grim situation as the storm raked the coast and roared inland. “There will be people who die and are killed in this storm,” he warned.
“We need to watch out for each other, but the intensity of this storm is such that there will undoubtedly be some deaths that are caused by the intensity of this storm, by the floods, by the tidal surge, and by the waves,” Mr. O’Malley said in a news conference from the statement’s emergency center broadcast live over the Internet.
High winds will quite likely force the state to close the long Bay Bridge that links mainland Maryland to the Delmarva Peninsula, which is already seeing damage from the pounding surf, he said.
There was no holding back the swollen waters in other states, as it breached protective barriers in places like Atlantic City, N.J., where the boardwalk was damaged, photos posted online showed, while water seeped inland by several blocks. In Delaware, the creeping storm surge left standing water from the Atlantic on some of the seafront roads in Rehoboth Beach.
According to forecasters, the storm is on a scale that weather historians say has little precedent along the East Coast. Landfall is predicted on Monday night somewhere between central New Jersey and southern Delaware. But most of the eastern United States will feel Hurricane Sandy’s effects, making the exact landfall spot less important than the overall trajectory. “One of the biggest storms of our lifetimes is unfolding right now,” the anchor Kelly Cass said as The Weather Channel started its fourth day of nonstop coverage.
A day in advance, residents were ordered to evacuate, with many seeking refuge in shelters. Mass transit systems ground to a halt, and people stocked up on water and food.
Broad Area of Strong Winds
Hurricane-force winds extend up to 175 miles from the center of the storm; tropical-storm-force winds extend up to 485 miles from the center. This means that portions of the coast from Virginia to Massachusetts will feel hurricane-force winds as the storm moves toward land, according to forecasters. Winds of tropical-storm force could stretch all the way north to Canada and all the way west to the Great Lakes, where flood warnings were issued on Sunday.
“A turn toward the northwest is expected soon,” the hurricane center’s 11 a.m. advisory said, followed by another turn toward the west northwest. “The center of Sandy is expected to make landfall along or just south of the southern New Jersey coast this evening or tonight.”
Some states expected snow, with blizzard warnings issued for mountainous stretches of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.
Hurricane Sandy Predicted to Bring ‘Life-Threatening’ Surge
This article
Hurricane Sandy Predicted to Bring ‘Life-Threatening’ Surge
can be opened in url
http://newsbillboards.blogspot.com/2012/10/hurricane-sandy-predicted-to-bring-life.html
Hurricane Sandy Predicted to Bring ‘Life-Threatening’ Surge
