* Record storm surge in Lower Manhattan
* New York subway tunnels flooded
* More than 7 million on East Coast without power
By Anna Louie Sussman and Michael Erman
NEW YORK, Oct 30 (Reuters) – Millions of people across the
eastern United States awoke on Tuesday to scenes of destruction
wrought by monster storm Sandy, which knocked out power to huge
swathes of the nation’s most densely populated region, swamped
New York’s subway system and submerged streets in Manhattan’s
financial district.
At least 15 people were reported killed in the United States
by Sandy, one of the biggest storms to ever hit the country,
which dropped just below hurricane status before making landfall
on Monday night in New Jersey.
The storm interrupted the presidential campaign a week
before Election Day – posing both risks and opportunities for
President Barack Obama as he seeks a second term – and closed
U.S. financial markets for a second day.
More than 1 million people in a dozen states were under
orders to evacuate as the massive system continued its trek
westward. It left behind a trail of damage – homes underwater,
trees toppled and power lines downed – caused by epic flooding
and fierce winds all along the eastern seaboard.
Obama issued federal emergency decrees for New York and New
Jersey, declaring that “major disasters” existed in both states.
One disaster forecasting company predicted economic losses could
ultimately reach $20 billion, only half insured.
“It’s total devastation down there, there are boats in the
street five blocks from the ocean,” said evacuee Peter
Sandomeno, one of the owners of the Broadway Court Motel in
Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey. “That’s the worst storm I’ve
ever seen, and I’ve been there for 11 years.”
Sandy, which was especially imposing because of its
wide-ranging winds, brought a record storm surge of almost 14
feet (4.2 meters) to downtown Manhattan, well above the previous
record of 10 feet (3 meters) during Hurricane Donna in 1960, the
National Weather Service said.
Water poured into the subway system and tunnels that course
under the city, raising concerns that the world’s financial
capital could be hobbled for days.
“Hitting at high tide, the strongest surge and the strongest
winds all hit at the worst possible time,” said Jeffrey Tongue,
a meteorologist for the weather service in Brookhaven, New York.
Hurricane-force winds as high as 90 miles per hour (145 km
per hour) were recorded, he said.
“Hopefully it’s a once-in-a-lifetime storm,” Tongue said.
Large sections of New York City were without power, and
transportation in the metropolitan area was at a standstill.
“In 108 years our employees have never faced a challenge
like the one that confronts us now,” Metropolitan Transportation
Authority Chairman Joseph Lhota said in a statement.
It could take anywhere from 14 hours to four days to get the
water out of the flooded subway tunnels, the MTA said.
“The damage has been geographically very widespread”
throughout the subway, bus and commuter train system, MTA
spokesman Aaron Donovan said.
MORE THAN 50 HOMES BURN
The unprecedented flooding hampered efforts to fight a
massive fire that destroyed more than 50 homes in Breezy Point,
a private beach community on the Rockaway barrier island in the
New York City borough of Queens, the Fire Department of New York
said.
Two people in New York City reportedly died in the storm – a
man in a house hit by a tree and a woman who stepped into an
electrified puddle of water. Two other people were killed in
suburban Westchester County, north of New York City, and two
others were reported killed on suburban Long Island.
A motor vehicle death in Massachusetts was blamed in part on
the bad weather. Two other people were killed in Maryland in
storm-related incidents, state authorities said, and deaths also
were reported in Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West
Virginia, CNN said.
Toronto police also recorded one death – a woman hit by
flying debris.
Sandy killed 66 people in the Caribbean last week before
pounding U.S. coastal areas.
More than 7 million people in several U.S. states were
without electricity due to the storm, which crashed ashore late
on Monday near the gambling resort of Atlantic City, New Jersey.
With Obama and Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney
keeping campaigning on hold for a second day instead of
launching their final push for votes ahead of the Nov. 6
election, the storm’s onslaught added a new level of uncertainty
to an already tense, tight race for the White House.
Obama, who has made every effort to show himself staying on
top of the storm situation, faces political danger if the
federal government fails to respond well in the storm’s
aftermath, as was the case with predecessor George W. Bush’s
botched handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
But Obama also has a chance to look presidential in a
national crisis.
The federal government in Washington was closed for a second
day on Tuesday, and schools were shut up and down the East
Coast.
The storm was plowing westward over south-central
Pennsylvania, still packing near hurricane-force winds as strong
as 65 miles per hour (105 km per hour), the National Weather
Service said.
Wind gusts, rain and flooding were likely to extend well
into Tuesday, but without the storm’s earlier devastating power,
said AccuWeather meteorologist Jim Dickey.
“Overall, the worst has past,” Dickey said.
The storm’s wind field stretched from North Carolina north
to the Canadian border and from West Virginia to a point in the
Atlantic Ocean halfway to Bermuda, easily one of the largest
ever seen, the National Hurricane Center said.
Heavy snow fell in higher elevations of the Appalachian
Mountains inland.
NEW JERSEY TOWNS FLOODED
Three towns in New Jersey, just west of New York City, were
inundated with up to 5 feet (1.5 metres) of water after a levee
on the nearby Hackensack River was overtopped or breached,
officials said. Rescuers were using boats to aid the marooned
residents of Moonachie, Little Ferry and Carlstadt.
In New York, a crane partially collapsed and dangled
precariously from a 90-story luxury apartment building under
construction in Midtown Manhattan.
Much of the city was deserted, as its subways, buses,
commuter trains, bridges and airports were closed. Power outages
darkened most of downtown Manhattan as well as Westchester
County, affecting more than 650,000 customers, power company
Consolidated Edison said.
“This is the largest storm-related outage in our history,”
said John Miksad, Con Ed’s senior vice president for electric
operations. The previous record was the more than 200,000
customers hit with outages last year during Hurricane Irene, the
utility said.
Neighborhoods along the East and Hudson rivers in Manhattan
were underwater, as were low-lying streets in Battery Park near
Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center once stood.
U.S. stock markets were set to be closed on Tuesday. They
closed on Monday for the first time since the attacks of Sept.
11, 2001.
Most areas in downtown Manhattan were without power on
Monday morning. As the sun rose, most of the water in
Manhattan’s low-lying Battery Park City appeared to have
receded.
A security guard at 7 World Trade Center, Gregory Baldwin,
was catching some rest in his car after laboring overnight
against floodwaters that engulfed a nearby office building.
“The water went inside up to here,” he said, pointing to his
chest. “The water came shooting down from Battery Park with the
gusting wind.”
Power and back-up generators failed at New York University
Hospital, forcing patients to be moved elsewhere for care.
In Lower Manhattan, firefighters used inflatable orange
boats to rescue utility workers stranded for three hours by
rising floodwaters inside a power substation.
One of the Con Ed workers pulled from the floodwater, Angelo
Amato, said he was part of a crew who had offered to work
through the storm.
“This is what happens when you volunteer,” he said.
