According to The Washington Post, strengthening Hurricane Sandy lashed much of the East Coast with gale-force winds Monday ahead of its expected landfall, pummeling beach towns as residents of major cities hunkered down, federal and state governments closed their offices and political candidates put their campaigns on hold eight days before Election Day.
Heeding days of dire forecasts and warnings, Washington, New York and other cities launched the type of extensive shutdowns that typically occur after several feet of snow.
The Washington region’s entire public transit system — Metro, Virginia Railway Express and the Maryland Transportation System — ceased operation, leaving residents to either drive themselves to work or stay home. High winds forced the closure of the Bay Bridge around 3 p.m. and even Interstate 95, as Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) said officials were moving to close the East Coast’s major artery at the Susquehanna River and detour traffic around Tydings Bridge.
Schools, colleges and universities shut their doors, in anticipation of power outages and dangerous road conditions, and some announced they would be closed Tuesday and Wednesday as well. D.C. taxi cabs announced a $15 per ride emergency surcharge.
U.S. stock markets did not open Monday — their first weather-related closure in nearly three decades — and were expected to remain closed Tuesday as well.
President Obama, who canceled campaign plans for Monday and Tuesday so he could remain at the White House and oversee the federal response to the storm, urged affected residents to obey evacuation orders and other instructions from state and local officials. He warned that failure to do so could endanger first-responders and lead to fatalities.
“We are certain that this is going to be a slow-moving process through a wide swath of the country, and millions of people are going to be affected,” Obama told reporters at the White House. He said the Federal Emergency Management Agency has pre-positioned supplies and is working closely with state and local officials.
Asked about the storm’s effect on the election campaign, Obama said: “I am not worried at this point about the impact on the election. I’m worried about the impact on families, and I’m worried about the impact on our first-responders. I’m worried about the impact on our economy and on transportation. The election will take care of itself next week. Right now, our number one priority is to make sure we are saving lives.”
In its latest advisory, the National Hurricane Center said at 2 p.m. Eastern time that the center of Hurricane Sandy was about 175 miles south-southeast of New York City and was expected to make landfall early Monday evening along or just south of the southern New Jersey coast. The center said hurricane-force winds are expected along portions of the East Coast between Chincoteague, Va., and Chatham, Mass. But gale-force winds were already battering a stretch of Mid-Atlantic coastline from North Carolina to southern New England.
Significant flooding was reported in Atlantic City, N.J. and Ocean City, Md., and half of Ocean City’s main fishing pier was washed away. The tall ship HMS Bounty sank off the North Carolina coast; 14 crew members were rescued by the Coast Guard, but two were reported missing, according to the Associated Press.
Ocean City officials said Sandy was comparable to the massive storm that snapped the city’s historic boardwalk in 1985. About 200 residents remained in the resort town, despite a mandatory evacuation. No injuries or deaths were reported, officials said.
Sandy strengthened in the morning, with maximum sustained winds reaching 90 miles per hour, up from 75 mph previously. As predicted, the vast storm — some 900 miles wide — began moving west from the ocean toward land.
The hurricane center said heavy rains of four to eight inches are expected over parts of the Mid-Atlantic states, with isolated maximum amounts of 12 inches possible. In addition, snowfall accumulations of two to three feet are expected in the mountains of West Virginia, the center said.
West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin (D) declared a state of emergency Monday afternoon, with snow already falling.
In the city of Beckley, W. Va., (population 17,675), wet snow was accumulating on lawns, but not roadways, Mayor Emmett Pugh said Monday afternoon by telephone. He said the city was expecting the storm to dump at least 17 inches of snow, which would not normally be cause for worry. But he said officials are concerned that the combination of high winds, the damp heavy snow,and trees still covered with leaves could cause the kind of long-lasting widespread power outages that occurred last summer after the damaging June 29 derecho.
In Washington, winds were blowing at about 20 miles per hour, with gusts as high as 36 mph. The wind was expected to grow stronger throughout the day, reaching top speeds of more than 70 mph starting Monday evening and continuing overnight. The water level in Rock Creek was rising, and standing water was reported on K Street NW, Connecticut Avenue NW and U.S. 50/Arlington Boulevard.
Up and down the Eastern Seaboard, officials in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York braced for significant damage that ultimately could affect tens of millions. New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) ordered the evacuation of Coney Island and a huge swath of Lower Manhattan, and authorities shut down the city’s schools and its subway system, effectively bringing the nation’s largest city to a near halt. More than 60 miles inland, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (D) urged people to leave low-lying neighborhoods.
Even the New York Stock Exchange halted floor trading on Monday and moved to an electronic-only system. Obama canceled events for his reelection campaign, flying back to Washington from Florida to oversee the hurricane response. GOP challenger Mitt Romney also shelved his campaign plans. Both candidates in Virginia’s hard-fought Senate race warned residents to take down their yard signs lest they go airborne.
Thousands of flights in and out of East Coast airports were canceled, and utility crews were summoned from distant states after it was predicted that up to 10 million people might lose electricity. In the Washington area, utilities are using robo-calls to warn residents to prepare to be without power for days or weeks. But there was hope that local power systems rebuilt after the intense windstorm known as the “derecho” in June might better stand up to Sandy.
“Pepco has committed all its resources to Hurricane Sandy,” said Thomas H. Graham, the company’s regional president. “Because of the magnitude of the storm, we will not be issuing estimated restoration times until the storm has passed and a preliminary damage assessment has been conducted. At that time, a global estimated restoration time will be released indicating when we expect to have 90 percent of customers restored.”
As Sandy began to strike, thousands of East Coast residents lost power Monday. As of 1:30 p.m., 7,200 Dominion Virginia Power customers were without electricity, about 800 of them in Northern Virginia, the utility said. It said it has arranged to bring in about 2,600 workers from out of state to repair downed lines, with most expected to begin arriving Tuesday afternoon.
Sandy and its co-conspirators — a jet stream barricade to the west, a strong nor’easter and a full moon that drives tides to abnormal heights — were not be be trifled with, forecasters warned. The full moon on Monday will add 2 to 3 inches to the storm surge in New York, said Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters.
“This storm is a killer storm that will likely take more lives as she makes landfall,” O’Malley said. “This is a very large and unprecedented storm. It will be a couple of days before it will be even safe to get linemen out on the streets [and] up in the bucket trucks and reconnecting people to power.”
Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) said Sandy “is unlike any storm I’ve seen in 20 years in office. It’s a very unique weather event this late in the season for the people of Virginia.”
D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) said the storm was “unique, large, dangerous and unlike anything our region has ever experienced in a very a long time.”
At the Montgomery Country transfer station, drenched workers near a heaping pile of leaves and mulch reported that at least 20 citizens braved the rain on Monday to drop off just-gathered piles of fall yard debris that they didn’t want clogging up gutters and storm pipes.
The earthy smell stood in sharp contrast with the odor emanating from other sectors of the transfer station.
“They’re still coming out here,” said Sharema Williams, a country contractor helping supervise the heaping mound of earth.
But Greg Lambert, shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond in Pentagon City on Sunday before heading to the neighboring Harris Teeter to stock up on canned peaches, chips and a ham, was in no hurry to hunker down.
“I’ve lived through hurricanes before,” said Lambert, 60, of Crystal City, “and I’ll live through this one.”
Said Ross Milton, 56, who lives near the Pentagon: “I don’t ever prepare for storms.”
Until a storm has a serious impact on her, she said, her plans won’t change. “My husband and I will probably sit on the front porch and watch it,” Milton said.
Weather forecasters were far less sanguine. They said the confluence of intense elements was unlike anything they have seen before, particularly across a swath of the United States inhabited by almost 60 million people.
“Many have compared Sandy to ‘the Perfect Storm’ of 1991, and experts have warned it may be even worse,” said Jason Samenow of The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang. “Generally speaking, though, each storm has its own character, and sometimes you just can’t compare until all is said and done.”
Obama on Sunday declared emergencies in several states, including Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the District. He also met with officials at the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Washington and spoke on a conference call with governors and mayors from as far south as North Carolina, as far north as New England and as far west as Ohio.
“At this stage, everybody is confident that the staging process, the pre-positioning of resources, commodities, equipment that are going to be needed to respond to this storm, are in place,” Obama said afterward.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management said all federal offices in the Washington area would be closed Monday, with all non-emergency employees being granted excused absences for the day. Federal workers who could tele-work from home were expected to work.
Scores of flights at Reagan National and Dulles International airports were canceled. The ripple effect of shutting down flights to most of the East Coast states is expected to snarl national air travel for days after the storm passes. Amtrak canceled service in the northeast.
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