A Cape Charles police officer tapes off the town fishing pier and beach to restrict access on Sunday. Areas on the Chesapeake Bay side of the Eastern Shore of Virginia were already experiencing coastal flooding from Hurricane Sandy. (Photo: Jay Diem, Eastern Shor News)
Words like catastrophic, historic, life-threatening and even "worse
than Katrina" are all being used to describe the ferocity of oncoming
Hurricane Sandy, now forecast to make landfall late Monday night or
early Tuesday morning somewhere along the New Jersey coast.
However,
forecasters warned people not to focus on the storm center. Howling
winds extend hundreds of miles from the eye of Sandy and are starting to
impact coastal regions already. The National Hurricane Center reported
that tropical storm force winds (from 39-73 mph) extend out 520 miles in
many directions from the center of Sandy.
As of 2 p.m., the
center of the storm was located about 575 miles due south of New York
City, with sustained wind speeds of 75 mph, making it a Category 1
hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity. Sandy was
moving to the northeast at 14 mph.
Since records of storm size
began in 1988, no tropical storm or hurricane has been larger, reports
meteorologist Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground.
About
60 million people are in the path of Sandy, AccuWeather meteorologist
Alex Sosnowski says, and billions of dollars of damage are expected as
the storm roars through.
Top weather impacts:
Storm surge:
Ocean water pushed onshore by the hurricane will likely cause the most
destruction. A storm surge of from 6 to 11 feet is forecast to swamp New
York City, which could overtop the city's levees and flood the subway
system. "It is possible areas from New Jersey to New York City and Long
Island have some of their worst coastal flooding on record," Sosnowski
says.
High winds: Wild winds of up to 75 mph will likely
knock out power to millions of people in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
"There is the potential for tens of thousands of trees to be downed and
millions of utility customers could be without power," Sosnowski says.
Masters reports that a power outage computer model run by Johns Hopkins
University predicts that 10 million people will lose power from the
storm.
Rainfall: Rainfall amounts of 4 to 8 inches are
expected over portions of the Mid-Atlantic States, including the
Delmarva Peninsula, with isolated maximum amounts of 12 inches possible.
The rain could lead to river flooding in Maryland, Delaware and
Pennsylvania. Masters predicts that river flooding from Sandy will cause
just under $1 billion in damage.
Snowfall: Forecasters
say that some spots in the mountains of West Virginia have the potential
to receive up to 2 feet of snow from the storm as rain from Sandy
collides with cold air moving into the region.
Overall: "I
expect the total damage (including loss to the U.S. economy) to be worse
than Katrina," says meteorologist Mike Smith of AccuWeather Enterprise
Solutions. He reports that Sandy may cause more than $100 billion in
damage.
USA Today