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Rising water, caused by Hurricane Sandy, rushes into a subterranian parking garage on Oct 29, 2012, in the Financial District of New York, United States. -- PHOTO: AFP NEW YORK (AFP) - Howling winds and a major sea surge thrown up by Hurricane Sandy flooded into New York streets late on Monday US time cutting power and swamping cars in Brooklyn. The seawater burst the banks of the East and Hudson rivers, rushing into Manhattan cutting power to giant apartment blocks. Fierce 150 kilometre gusts pushed over a crane on a Midtown skyscraper - leaving it dangling - and pulled down the facade of another building. Tens of thousands of people ignored appeals by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to leave the districts at risk. But Mr Bloomberg said the only reported casualty so far was a jogger injured by a falling tree. New York authorities closed the subway train system and nearly all tunnels and bridges that take traffic off Manhattan as the full force of Sandy hit America's biggest city. Authorities issued a mandatory evacuation order for 375,000 people at risk from a storm surge but the vast majority decided to brave it out. As night fell, Mr Bloomberg said it may be too late to get away. On the streets of Manhattan, police cars used to block streets gradually retreated as flood water moved further into the island. The ConEd power company said that more than 150,000 homes across New York lost electricity because of floods and trees torn up by the hurricane. Schools and landmark attractions such as the Empire State Building were all closed and were to stay closed on Tuesday. Hardly a car ventured onto the streets. Only the hardiest store-owners stayed open. Supermarkets had been stripped of batteries, pocket lamps, bread and water. Floods across New York as Sandy slams into eastern US Published on Oct 30, 2012 REHOBOTH BEACH, Delaware (REUTERS) - Sandy, one of the biggest storms to hit the United States, pounded the east coast on Tuesday, flooding large parts of New York City, bringing transport to a halt and interrupting the US presidential campaign. More than 5.5 million people were left without electrical power by the storm and more than one million people across a dozen states were ordered to evacuate. Two people were killed in the New York borough of Queens - a man in a house hit by a falling tree and a woman who stepped into an electrified puddle of water. Massachusetts police said one man was killed in Peabody in an accident related to the bad weather. Toronto police also recorded one death, a woman hit by flying debris. Associated Press reported that at least 10 deaths are blamed on the storm so far. Heavy snows threatened mountainous regions inland, and huge population centres of Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. lay in the storm's path. Trees were downed across the region, falling debris closed a major bridge in Boston and floodwater and gusts of wind buffeted coastal towns such as Fairfield, Connecticut, home to many commuters into New York City, where police cruisers blocked access to the beaches. "We have not seen the kind of flooding problems that certainly could have happened thus far, but we've still got a long ways to go to get through this storm," Washington Mayor Vincent Gray said on local television. New York streets filled with floodwater, raising fears that the city's subway tunnels could be inundated, and flying debris blew along deserted sidewalks. The city closed down subway, bus and commuter train systems as of Sunday night. In lower Manhattan, firefighters used inflatable orange boats to rescue utility workers trapped for three hours by rising floodwaters inside a power substation. One of the workers pulled from the floodwater, Mr Angelo Amato, said he was part of a crew who had offered to work through the storm. "This is what happens when you volunteer," he said. "People are definitely not taking this seriously enough,"said police officer Tiffany Barrett. "Our worst fear is something like [Hurricane] Katrina and we can't get to people." The storm's wind field stretched from the Canadian border to South Carolina, and from West Virginia to an Atlantic Ocean point about halfway between the United States and Bermuda, easily one of the largest ever seen. The National Hurricane Centre said Sandy came ashore as a"post-tropical cyclone," meaning it still packed hurricane-force winds but lost the characteristics of a tropical storm. It had sustained winds of 129 kph, well above the threshold for hurricane intensity. With eight days to go before the presidential election, US President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney cancelled scheduled campaign events. Both candidates acted cautiously to avoid coming across as overtly political while millions of people are imperiled. US stock markets were closed on Monday for the first time since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and were set to remain shut on Tuesday. The federal government in Washington was closed, and schools were shut up and down the East Coast. NYSE Euronext said there had been no damage to the New York Stock Exchange headquarters that could impair trading floor operations, but it was making contingency plans in case of such damage. One disaster forecasting company predicted economic losses could ultimately reach US$20 billion (S$24.4 billion), only half insured. Governors up and down the East Coast declared states of emergency. Maryland's Martin O'Malley warned there was no question Sandy would kill people in its path. Sandy made landfall just south of Atlantic City, about 190 km south-west of Manhattan. Casinos in the gambling destination had already shut down. In New York, officials evacuated neighbors of a 90-story super luxury apartment building under construction after its crane partially collapsed in high winds, prompting fears the entire rig could crash to the ground. New York electric utility Con Edison said it expected "record-size outages," with 588,000 customers in the city and nearby Westchester County without power. The company is facing both falling trees knocking down power lines from above and flood waters swamping underground systems from below. While Sandy does not have the intensity of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, it killed 66 people in the Caribbean last week before pounding US. coastal areas as it moved north. An AccuWeather meteorologist said Sandy "is unfolding as the Northeast's Katrina," and others said Sandy could be the largest storm to hit the mainland in US history. Off North Carolina, the US. Coast Guard rescued 14 of the 16 crew members who abandoned the replica ship HMS Bounty, using helicopters to lift them from life rafts. The Coast Guard later recovered the body of an "unresponsive" 42-year-old woman while continuing to search for the 63-year-old captain of the ship, which sank in 5.5 metre seas. In New Jersey, Exelon Corp declared an alert around its Oyster Creek nuclear power plant because of rising waters, the US. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said. Officials said if waters rise further, they may be forced to use emergency water supplies from a fire hose to cool spent uranium fuel rods. An alert-level incident, the second-lowest of four action levels, means there's a "potential substantial degradation in the level of safety" at a reactor. Storm Sandy floods seven New York subway tunnels Published on Oct 30, 2012 
A sign announcing the temporary closure of the New York subway system, due to Hurricane Sandy, is seen in the subway prior to the arrival of Hurricane Sandy on Oct 28, 2012 in New York City. Surging seawater forced ashore by superstorm Sandy flooded seven New York subway tunnels and six bus garages in the worst disaster in the history of city transport, the network's chief said on Tuesday. -- PHOTO: AFP NEW YORK (AFP) - Surging seawater forced ashore by superstorm Sandy flooded seven New York subway tunnels and six bus garages in the worst disaster in the history of city transport, the network's chief said on Tuesday. "The New York City subway system is 108 years old, but it has never faced a disaster as devastating as what we experienced last night," said Joseph Lhota, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). "Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on our entire transportation system, in every borough and county of the region. It has brought down trees, ripped out power and inundated tunnels, rail yards and bus depots," he said. The MTA released the statement after Monday's disaster, in which high tides driven onwards by hurricane-force winds flooded a vast swathe of the US East Coast, including lower Manhattan, the heart of New York. More than half a million households and businesses lost electric power and much of the city's underground mass transit system, which had pre-emptively halted before the floods, filled up with seawater. "As of last night, seven subway tunnels under the East River flooded. Metro-North Railroad lost power from 59th Street to Croton-Harmon on the Hudson Line and to New Haven on the New Haven Line," Mr Lhota's statement said. "Six bus garages were disabled by high water. We are assessing the extent of the damage and beginning the process of recovery," he warned, without being able to put a timetable on the repairs needed to get the city moving. "In 108 years, our employees have never faced a challenge like the one that confronts us now. All of us at the MTA are committed to restoring the system as quickly as we can to help bring New York back to normal." he said. Sandy leaves death, damp and darkness in US Published on Oct 30, 2012 
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