Just before the storm center reached land, forecasters stripped it of hurricane status, but the dist

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, threatening its subways and the electrical system that powers 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.
Sandy knocked out power to at least 3.1 million people across the East, and New York City s main utility said large sections of Manhattan were plunged into darkness. Water pressed into the island from three sides.
Just before the storm center 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 50 million people in its path.
As the storm closed in, it smacked the boarded-up tour master helmet bag big cities 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 an attempt to lessen damage from saltwater to the subway system and the electrical tour master helmet bag 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 explosions.
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 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 Election Day. The president pledged the government s help and made a direct tour master helmet bag plea from the White House to those in the storm s path.
Pete Wilson, who owns an antiques shop in Cape May, N.J., at the state s southern tip and directly in Sandy s path, said the water was 6 inches above the bottom tour master helmet bag edge of the door. He had already taken a truckload of antiques out but was certain tour master helmet bag he would take a big hit.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said people were stranded tour master helmet bag in Atlantic City, which sits on a barrier island. tour master helmet bag He accused the mayor of allowing them to stay there. With the hurricane roaring through, Christie warned it was no longer safe for rescuers, and advised people who didn t evacuate the barrier islands to hunker down until morning.
tour master helmet bag 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 director for Weather Underground, a private forecasting service. The energy of the storm surge is off the charts, basically.
A construction crane atop a luxury high-rise in New York City collapsed in the wind and dangled precariously 74 floors above the street. Forecasters said the wind at the top the building may have been close to 95 mph.
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, tour master helmet bag president of the main Atlantic City casino workers union. I think this is going to be a really bad situation tonight.
tour master helmet bag At least half a million tour master helmet bag people had been ordered to evacuate, including 375,000 from low-lying parts of New York City, and by the afternoon authorities were warning that it could be too late for people who had not left already.
Those who stayed behind had few ways to get out. Not only was the subway shut down, but the Holland Tunnel connecting New York to New Jersey was closed, as was a tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan, and the city planned to shut down the Brooklyn Bridge, the George Washington, the Verrazano-Narrows and several other spans because of high winds.
If the storm reaches the higher estimate of $20 billion in damage, that would put it ahead of Hurricane Irene, which raked the Northeast in August 2011 and caused $16 billion in damage. Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,200 people, cost $108 billion.