Superstorm Sandy: President Obama declares ’major disaster’ in New York and Long Island

Mail Online

New York, 31 oct 2012:  The scale of the devastation left by Superstorm Sandy is mounting today as the death toll continues to rise - currently 50 people across the US and Canada have been reported dead, but the final figure is expected to be significantly higher.
President Obama declared a ’major disaster’ in New York and Long Island as flooded streets were littered with cars, homes were razed to the ground and tankers washed up on shore.

The President warned that Sandy ’is not yet over’ and announced that he would visit New Jersey on Wednesday to visit the scenes of the destruction.Hundreds of thousands of people are without power in New York and the transit system, schools, the stock exchange and Broadway are all out of action after a 13ft wall of water caused by the storm surge and high tides brought severe flooding to subways and road tunnels.

 

A 15th crew member who was found unresponsive several hours after the others was later pronounced dead. The Bounty’s captain was still missing.One of the units at Indian Point, a nuclear power plant about 45 miles north of New York City, was shut down around 10:45 p.m. Monday because of external electrical grid issues, said Entergy Corp., which operates the plant. The company said there was no risk to employees or the public.

 

 

And officials declared an ’unusual event’ at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey Township, N.J., the nation’s oldest, when waters surged to 6 feet above sea level during the evening.
Within two hours, the situation at the reactor - which was offline for regular maintenance - was upgraded to an alert, the second-lowest in a four-tiered warning system. Oyster Creek provides 9 percent of the state’s electricity.
In Baltimore, fire officials said four unoccupied rowhouses collapsed in the storm, sending debris into the street but causing no injuries. Meanwhile, a blizzard in far western Maryland caused a pileup of tractor-trailers that blocked the westbound lanes of Interstate 68 on slippery Big Savage Mountain near the town of Finzel.

’It’s like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs up here,’ said Bill Wiltson, a Maryland State Police dispatcher.
Hundreds of miles from the storm’s center, gusts topping 60 mph prompted officials to close the port of Portland, Maine, and scaring away several cruise ships.

 
A state of emergency in New Hampshire prompted Vice President Joe Biden to cancel a rally in Keene and Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann, to call off her bus tour through the Granite State.About 360,000 people in 30 Connecticut towns were urged to leave their homes under mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders. Christi McEldowney was among those who fled to a Fairfield shelter. She and other families brought tents for their children to play in.’There’s something about this storm,’ she said. ’I feel it deep inside.’

Despite dire warnings and evacuation orders that began Saturday, many stayed put.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie - whose own family had to move to the executive mansion after his home in Mendham, far from the storm’s center, lost power - criticized the mayor of Atlantic City for opening shelters there instead of forcing people out.
Eugenia Buono, 77, and her neighbor, Elaine DiCandio, 76, were among several dozen people who took shelter at South Kingstown High School in Narragansett, R.I. They live on Harbor Island, which is connected to the mainland by a causeway.

’I’m not an idiot,’ said Buono, who survived hurricanes Carol in 1954 and Bob in 1991. ’People are very foolish if they don’t leave.’
Reggie Thomas emerged this morning from his job as a maintenance supervisor at a prison near the overflowing Hudson River, a toothbrush in his front pocket, to find his 2011 Honda with its windows down and a foot (304 millimeters) of water inside.
’It’s totaled,’ Thomas said, with a shrug. ’You would have needed a boat last night.’

Today stock trading is closed in the U.S. again for a second day running - the last time the New York Stock Exchange was closed for weather was in 1985 because of Hurricane Gloria, and it will be the first time since 1888 that the exchange will have been closed for two consecutive days because of weather.

Residents in New York City spent much of yesterday trying to salvage normal routines, jogging and snapping pictures of the water while officials warned the worst of the storm had not hit. Water lapped over the seawall in Battery Park City, flooding rail yards, subway tracks, tunnels and roads.