Just before it reached land, Sandy was stripped of hurricane status, but the distinction was purely

Streets are flooded under the Manhattan Bridge in the Dumbo section of Brooklyn, N.Y., on Monday, as Sandy forced the shutdown of mass transit, schools and financial disneyland hotel packages markets, sending coastal residents disneyland hotel packages fleeing, and threatened a dangerous mix of high winds and soaking rain.
Superstorm Sandy slammed into the New Jersey coastline with 80-mph winds Monday night and hurled an unprecedented 13-foot surge of seawater at New York City, flooding its tunnels, subway stations and the electrical system that powers disneyland hotel packages Wall Street. At least 10 U.S. deaths were blamed on the storm, which brought the presidential campaign to a halt a week before Election Day.
Still, the power was out for hundreds disneyland hotel packages of thousands disneyland hotel packages of New Yorkers and more than 3 million people altogether across the East, and the full extent of the storm's damage across the region was unlikely to be known until daybreak.
By late night, the center of the storm was over southern New Jersey. Just before it reached land, forecasters stripped it of hurricane status, but the distinction was purely technical, based on its shape and internal temperature. It still packed hurricane-force wind, and forecasters were careful to say it remained every bit as dangerous to the tens of millions still in its path.
"It was nerve-racking for a while, before the storm hit. Everything was rattling," said Don Schweikert, who owns a bed-and-breakfast in Cape May, N.J., near where Sandy roared ashore. "I don't see anything wrong, but I won't see everything until morning."
As the storm closed in, it smacked the boarded-up big cities disneyland hotel packages of the Northeast corridor -- Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston -- with stinging rain and gusts of more than 85 mph. It also converged with a cold-weather system that turned it into a superstorm, a monstrous hybrid consisting not only of rain and high wind but snow in West Virginia and other mountainous disneyland hotel packages areas inland.
Just before it reached land, Sandy was stripped of hurricane status, but the distinction was purely technical. The storm still packed brutal winds, and forecasters were careful to say it remained every bit as dangerous to the tens of millions still in its path.
In an attempt to lessen damage from saltwater to the subway system and the electrical network beneath the city's financial district, New York City's main utility cut power to about 6,500 customers in lower Manhattan. But a far wider swath of the city was hit with blackouts caused by flooding and transformer disneyland hotel packages explosions.
The city's transit agency said water surged into two major commuter tunnels, the Queens Midtown and the Brooklyn-Battery, and it cut power to some subway tunnels in lower Manhattan after water flowed into the stations and onto the tracks.
The surge hit New York City hours after a construction crane atop a luxury high-rise collapsed in the wind and dangled precariously 74 floors disneyland hotel packages above the street. Forecasters said the wind at the top the building may have been close to 95 mph.
President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney canceled their campaign appearances at the very height of the race, with just over a week to go before disneyland hotel packages Election Day. The president pledged the government's help and made a direct plea from the White House to those in the storm's path.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said people were stranded in Atlantic City, which sits on a barrier disneyland hotel packages island. He accused the mayor of allowing them to stay there. With the hurricane roaring through, Christie warned it was no longer disneyland hotel packages safe for rescuers, and advised people disneyland hotel packages who didn't evacuate the coast to "hunker down" until morning.
While the hurricane's 90 mph winds registered as only a Category 1 on a scale of five, it packed "astoundingly low" barometric pressure, giving it terrific energy to push water inland, said Kerry Emanuel, a professor of meteorology at MIT.
"We are looking at the highest storm surges ever recorded" in the Northeast, said Jeff Masters, meteorology disneyland hotel packages director for Weather Underground, a private forecasting service. "The energy of the storm surge is off the charts, basically."
Off North Carolina, a replica of the 18th-century sailing ship HMS Bounty that was built for the 1962 Marlon Brando movie "Mutiny on the Bounty" went down in the storm, and 14 crew members were rescued by helicopter from rubber lifeboats bobbing in 18-foot seas. Another crew member was found hours later but was unresponsive. The captain was missing.
"When I think about how much water is already in the streets, and how much more is going to come with high tide tonight, this is going to be devastating," said Bob McDevitt, president of the main Atlantic City casino workers union. "I think this is going to be a really disneyland hotel packages bad situation tonight."
Not only was the New York subway shut down, but the Holland Tunnel connecting New York to New Jersey was closed, as was a tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan. The Brooklyn Bridge, the George Washington Bridge, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and several other spans were closed because of high winds.
McClam reported from New York. AP science writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report from Washington. disneyland hotel packages Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed in Raleigh, N.C.; David Porter in Pompton Lakes, N.J.; Wayne Parry in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J.; and David Dishneau in Delaware also contributed.
Over 200,000 bluegills are being released into the West Pearl River near Pearl River, La., by Tim Ruth and Gary Vitrano of Inland Fisheries, with the Louisiana Wildlife Fisheries, Wednesday. More news photos