Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Mark Johnson's winter weather forecast
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Wicked weather disappoints children as Sandy delays Halloween
(Reuters) - Mega-storm Sandy played Wicked Witch on Wednesday, postponing Halloween for millions of disappointed East Coast children warned not to trick or treat amid dangling electrical wires and trees uprooted by the deadly weather.
Historic damage from Sandy upended the fun across the U.S. East Coast, rescheduling the traditional door-to-door candy gathering in some Connecticut towns to November 7, the day after Election Day.
By executive order, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie moved Halloween to Monday, citing safety concerns in his storm-ravaged state, where Sandy made landfall earlier this week and began its destructive march inland.
Millions of children looking forward to Halloween since last year's celebration was canceled by a freak snowstorm were stunned by the news that the October 31 holiday was being delayed yet again.
'I'm upset. It's just not the same as on Halloween,' said Piper Eccles, 12, of Maplewood, New Jersey, who spent $80 on her homemade costume to portray Effie Trinket, a character from the hit movie 'The Hunger Games.'
Some parents in New York City's suburbs fended off deep disappointment and endless whining by staging last-minute daytime gatherings in parking lots and parks where their costumed children could safely trick or treat on the actual holiday. At 'Trunk or Treat' events promoted by friends through Facebook and other social media, costumed children gathered candy car to car, trunk to trunk.
'Instead of knocking on doors, my son would knock on the plastic ghost basket he was holding and say, 'Trick or treat!'' Nancy Trager of Scarsdale, New York, said of her son Max, 8, who dressed as New England Patriots' quarterback Tom Brady.
A 'Trunk or Treat' party scheduled for Max's elementary school parking lot had to be moved to a nearby park because downed wires and trees blocked the route to school. A similar last-minute event at a shopping area parking lot in Livingston, New Jersey, drew about 50 families.
'It was fun because we were all going a little stir crazy,' said Adrienne Lewin, whose sons, ages 4 and 6, both dressed as pirates. Like millions of people left without power from the historic storm, Lewin's home was dark, quiet and growing increasingly cold as temperatures began to dip, she said.
It wasn't just children whose Halloween fun was ruined by Hurricane Sandy. For the first time in its 39-year history, New York City's annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade - known for its outrageous, risqué and most definitely adult costumes - was called off with the possibility that it may be rescheduled next week.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg cited the loss of power in lower Manhattan and the need for police elsewhere in the storm-battered city.
(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Cynthia Osterman)
This article is brought to you by ASTROLOGY.
Historic damage from Sandy upended the fun across the U.S. East Coast, rescheduling the traditional door-to-door candy gathering in some Connecticut towns to November 7, the day after Election Day.
By executive order, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie moved Halloween to Monday, citing safety concerns in his storm-ravaged state, where Sandy made landfall earlier this week and began its destructive march inland.
Millions of children looking forward to Halloween since last year's celebration was canceled by a freak snowstorm were stunned by the news that the October 31 holiday was being delayed yet again.
'I'm upset. It's just not the same as on Halloween,' said Piper Eccles, 12, of Maplewood, New Jersey, who spent $80 on her homemade costume to portray Effie Trinket, a character from the hit movie 'The Hunger Games.'
Some parents in New York City's suburbs fended off deep disappointment and endless whining by staging last-minute daytime gatherings in parking lots and parks where their costumed children could safely trick or treat on the actual holiday. At 'Trunk or Treat' events promoted by friends through Facebook and other social media, costumed children gathered candy car to car, trunk to trunk.
'Instead of knocking on doors, my son would knock on the plastic ghost basket he was holding and say, 'Trick or treat!'' Nancy Trager of Scarsdale, New York, said of her son Max, 8, who dressed as New England Patriots' quarterback Tom Brady.
A 'Trunk or Treat' party scheduled for Max's elementary school parking lot had to be moved to a nearby park because downed wires and trees blocked the route to school. A similar last-minute event at a shopping area parking lot in Livingston, New Jersey, drew about 50 families.
'It was fun because we were all going a little stir crazy,' said Adrienne Lewin, whose sons, ages 4 and 6, both dressed as pirates. Like millions of people left without power from the historic storm, Lewin's home was dark, quiet and growing increasingly cold as temperatures began to dip, she said.
It wasn't just children whose Halloween fun was ruined by Hurricane Sandy. For the first time in its 39-year history, New York City's annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade - known for its outrageous, risqué and most definitely adult costumes - was called off with the possibility that it may be rescheduled next week.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg cited the loss of power in lower Manhattan and the need for police elsewhere in the storm-battered city.
(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Cynthia Osterman)
This article is brought to you by ASTROLOGY.
Shares of utilities rise in Sandy's wake
NEW YORK (AP) - Power losses stemming from Superstorm Sandy have been inconvenient and even dangerous for millions, but severe weather in the past has typically resulted in only minor financial pain for electric utilities, an analyst said Wednesday.
Shares of several electric power companies traded slightly higher Wednesday as utilities worked to restore power to customers left without power in the wake of the storm.
Sandy struck Monday night. At the peak, more than 8.2 million lost electricity. As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 6 million homes and businesses were still without power late Wednesday afternoon, about 4 million of them in New York and New Jersey.
According to Citi's Brian Chin, power restoration costs are sometimes offset by increased rates. Over the long run, severe weather disruptions rarely have a significant impact on a utility's earnings, Chin said, helping protect companies' shares immediately after hurricanes or other devastating weather.
He did caution that the effort to restore power can take too long, leaving companies subject to increased regulatory scrutiny.
'We are therefore mindful particularly of how public perception of the restoration efforts in New Jersey and New York will unfold over the next week, and whether public figures may attempt to gain points ahead of election day,' Chin said. 'At this time, we see no cause for investment action, but this could change quickly.'
The election is on Nov. 6.
New Jersey's largest utility, Public Service Electric & Gas, said it has restored power to 30 percent of its 1.4 million customers who lost service. The utility is a unit of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc.
At one point, nearly 1 million customers of Consolidated Edison Inc. in and around New York City lost power, a record number for the utility. As of late Wednesday morning, 786,000 customers remained without service.
Customers of Philadelphia Electric Co., Pennsylvania Power & Light and Jersey Central Power & Light were also affected, but in smaller numbers.
PPL Corp. rose 8 cents to close at $29.57. ConEd shares rose 41 cents to $60.38. Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. added 30 cents to $32.04.
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Shares of several electric power companies traded slightly higher Wednesday as utilities worked to restore power to customers left without power in the wake of the storm.
Sandy struck Monday night. At the peak, more than 8.2 million lost electricity. As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 6 million homes and businesses were still without power late Wednesday afternoon, about 4 million of them in New York and New Jersey.
According to Citi's Brian Chin, power restoration costs are sometimes offset by increased rates. Over the long run, severe weather disruptions rarely have a significant impact on a utility's earnings, Chin said, helping protect companies' shares immediately after hurricanes or other devastating weather.
He did caution that the effort to restore power can take too long, leaving companies subject to increased regulatory scrutiny.
'We are therefore mindful particularly of how public perception of the restoration efforts in New Jersey and New York will unfold over the next week, and whether public figures may attempt to gain points ahead of election day,' Chin said. 'At this time, we see no cause for investment action, but this could change quickly.'
The election is on Nov. 6.
New Jersey's largest utility, Public Service Electric & Gas, said it has restored power to 30 percent of its 1.4 million customers who lost service. The utility is a unit of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc.
At one point, nearly 1 million customers of Consolidated Edison Inc. in and around New York City lost power, a record number for the utility. As of late Wednesday morning, 786,000 customers remained without service.
Customers of Philadelphia Electric Co., Pennsylvania Power & Light and Jersey Central Power & Light were also affected, but in smaller numbers.
PPL Corp. rose 8 cents to close at $29.57. ConEd shares rose 41 cents to $60.38. Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. added 30 cents to $32.04.
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GOP candidate among 3 killed in W.Va. weather
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - A West Virginia legislative candidate is the third person in the state reported to be killed in accidents related to weather from superstorm Sandy.
George Rose tells The Associated Press that his 60-year-old father, John Rose Sr., was checking fences on his deer farm in Barbour County on Tuesday when he was struck by a falling tree limb. He was a Republican candidate for the House of Delegates.
Barbour County Emergency Services Director Cindy Hart says another man in his 60s died Tuesday while shoveling snow.
The storm also was blamed for the death of a 40-year-old woman whose car collided with a cement truck Monday in Tucker County.
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George Rose tells The Associated Press that his 60-year-old father, John Rose Sr., was checking fences on his deer farm in Barbour County on Tuesday when he was struck by a falling tree limb. He was a Republican candidate for the House of Delegates.
Barbour County Emergency Services Director Cindy Hart says another man in his 60s died Tuesday while shoveling snow.
The storm also was blamed for the death of a 40-year-old woman whose car collided with a cement truck Monday in Tucker County.
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Mild Weather For DFW Trick-Or-Treaters
s:fb='http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml' xmlns:addthis='http://www.addthis.com/help/api-spec' > Garry Seith's 6:30 AM Weather Report « CBS Dallas / Fort Worth
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Climate and cost concerns mount in wake of "superstorm"
WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (Reuters Point Carbon) - Monday's mammoth storm that caused severe flooding, damage and fatalities to the eastern U.S. will raise pressure on Congress and the next president to address the impacts of climate change as the price tag for extreme weather disasters escalates.
Hurricane Sandy devastated the east coast of the United States, claiming dozens of lives so far, cutting power to over 8 million people and damaging major roadways, buildings and infrastructure, such as New York's 108-year old subway system.
Eqecat, one of the three primary firms used by the insurance industry to calculate disaster exposures, said Sandy could cause anywhere from $5 billion to $10 billion in insured losses and from $10 billion to $20 billion in economic losses, Reuters reported.
This would outdo the roughly $4.5 billion in insured losses caused by last year's Hurricane Irene, which also hit the northeast.
Sharlene Leurig, senior manager for insurance and water programs at Ceres, warned that in addition to the physical damage caused by Monday's storm, there would also be damage 'on the balance sheet of taxpayers in the U.S.,' raising pressure on Congress to take action on climate change.
'The sort of storm we just saw is likely to be more common in some of the most populated and valuable areas of the country,' she said.
She said the government's national flood insurance program (NFIP) is already in nearly $20 billion in debt since 2005's Hurricane Katrina and would likely cost taxpayers more as such storms become more frequent.
Some taxpayer groups have called on Congress to further reform the flood insurance program and said that reinsurance companies are better positioned to absorb the costs and risks related to extreme weather occurrences.
'It appears likely that Sandy will exhaust the NFIP's remaining $3 billion of statutory borrowing authority, meaning it will need to request more money from Congress to pay its claims,' said R.J. Lehmann, a senior fellow at free market policy research group R Street.
The R Street Institute is the insurance spinoff of the Heartland Institute, a group which has funded several high-profile campaigns questioning manmade climate change, but Lehmann has said the group does not promote 'climate skepticism.'
'In the short term, we would insist the NFIP use its existing authority to raise rates, buy reinsurance and issue catastrophe bonds, so that the private market, rather than taxpayers, assume the risk of these sorts of catastrophes in the future.
Sustainablity-focused investor group Ceres said that while 2012 private insured losses were lower so far this year than last year, when floods, heat waves, tornadoes and other extreme weather events gripped the U.S., total economic losses are likely to be significant.
On top of Hurricane Sandy, this year's drought alone is expected to cost insurers $20 billion, with most of those costs being shouldered by the federal crop insurance program.
'This storm, taken into consideration alongside one of the most economically damaging droughts in the last century, alongside wildfires that reached catastrophic proportions in the west. really point to the need for members of Congress to start taking seriously the reality that climate change is already upon us,' said Leurig.
Environmental groups and some political analysts said the exclusion of the climate change issue in this year's presidential and vice presidential debates was a missed opportunity to bring the issue back into the national debate.
Although the House of Representatives passed a comprehensive climate change bill in 2009, similar efforts failed in the Senate.
The issue became a taboo subject after the Tea Party and some stiffly opposed Republicans ramped up efforts to derail climate legislation and regulatory programs to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
Jennifer Morgan and Kevin Kennedy of the World Resources Institute, wrote in a blog post Tuesday that the silence on climate change on the campaign trail was 'extremely troubling' given the recent spate of extreme weather events and their economic impacts.
'We need our elected officials to break their silence on climate change. Whether climate change comes up in the final days of the campaign or not, the next president and Congress will need to step up and do more on this issue,' they wrote.
Former President Bill Clinton, who has been campaigning on President Barack Obama's behalf, took aim at a quip made by Republican challenger Mitt Romney at the Republican convention that the president cared more about the rise of ocean levels than families.
At a campaign speech in Minnesota on Tuesday, Clinton addressed the climate impacts of Hurricane Sandy.
'All up and down the East Coast, there are mayors, many of them Republicans, who are being told, 'You've got to move these houses back away from the ocean. You've got to lift them up,' he told the crowd.
'Climate change is going to raise the water levels on a permanent basis. If you want your town insured, you have to do this,' Clinton said.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici)
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Hurricane Sandy devastated the east coast of the United States, claiming dozens of lives so far, cutting power to over 8 million people and damaging major roadways, buildings and infrastructure, such as New York's 108-year old subway system.
Eqecat, one of the three primary firms used by the insurance industry to calculate disaster exposures, said Sandy could cause anywhere from $5 billion to $10 billion in insured losses and from $10 billion to $20 billion in economic losses, Reuters reported.
This would outdo the roughly $4.5 billion in insured losses caused by last year's Hurricane Irene, which also hit the northeast.
Sharlene Leurig, senior manager for insurance and water programs at Ceres, warned that in addition to the physical damage caused by Monday's storm, there would also be damage 'on the balance sheet of taxpayers in the U.S.,' raising pressure on Congress to take action on climate change.
'The sort of storm we just saw is likely to be more common in some of the most populated and valuable areas of the country,' she said.
She said the government's national flood insurance program (NFIP) is already in nearly $20 billion in debt since 2005's Hurricane Katrina and would likely cost taxpayers more as such storms become more frequent.
Some taxpayer groups have called on Congress to further reform the flood insurance program and said that reinsurance companies are better positioned to absorb the costs and risks related to extreme weather occurrences.
'It appears likely that Sandy will exhaust the NFIP's remaining $3 billion of statutory borrowing authority, meaning it will need to request more money from Congress to pay its claims,' said R.J. Lehmann, a senior fellow at free market policy research group R Street.
The R Street Institute is the insurance spinoff of the Heartland Institute, a group which has funded several high-profile campaigns questioning manmade climate change, but Lehmann has said the group does not promote 'climate skepticism.'
'In the short term, we would insist the NFIP use its existing authority to raise rates, buy reinsurance and issue catastrophe bonds, so that the private market, rather than taxpayers, assume the risk of these sorts of catastrophes in the future.
Sustainablity-focused investor group Ceres said that while 2012 private insured losses were lower so far this year than last year, when floods, heat waves, tornadoes and other extreme weather events gripped the U.S., total economic losses are likely to be significant.
On top of Hurricane Sandy, this year's drought alone is expected to cost insurers $20 billion, with most of those costs being shouldered by the federal crop insurance program.
'This storm, taken into consideration alongside one of the most economically damaging droughts in the last century, alongside wildfires that reached catastrophic proportions in the west. really point to the need for members of Congress to start taking seriously the reality that climate change is already upon us,' said Leurig.
Environmental groups and some political analysts said the exclusion of the climate change issue in this year's presidential and vice presidential debates was a missed opportunity to bring the issue back into the national debate.
Although the House of Representatives passed a comprehensive climate change bill in 2009, similar efforts failed in the Senate.
The issue became a taboo subject after the Tea Party and some stiffly opposed Republicans ramped up efforts to derail climate legislation and regulatory programs to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
Jennifer Morgan and Kevin Kennedy of the World Resources Institute, wrote in a blog post Tuesday that the silence on climate change on the campaign trail was 'extremely troubling' given the recent spate of extreme weather events and their economic impacts.
'We need our elected officials to break their silence on climate change. Whether climate change comes up in the final days of the campaign or not, the next president and Congress will need to step up and do more on this issue,' they wrote.
Former President Bill Clinton, who has been campaigning on President Barack Obama's behalf, took aim at a quip made by Republican challenger Mitt Romney at the Republican convention that the president cared more about the rise of ocean levels than families.
At a campaign speech in Minnesota on Tuesday, Clinton addressed the climate impacts of Hurricane Sandy.
'All up and down the East Coast, there are mayors, many of them Republicans, who are being told, 'You've got to move these houses back away from the ocean. You've got to lift them up,' he told the crowd.
'Climate change is going to raise the water levels on a permanent basis. If you want your town insured, you have to do this,' Clinton said.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici)
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Utility GDF Suez revenues up 8.4 percent this year
PARIS (AP) - Franco-Belgian utility GDF Suez reported Wednesday that its revenues were up 8.4 percent this year so far, driven in part by weather conditions in France and a state decision that will allow the company to recoup money lost in a government-mandated freeze on natural gas prices.
The company has brought in ?70.9 billion ($91.9 billion) in the first nine months of 2012. It didn't break out figures for the third quarter, but that's ?20.4 billion more in revenue than GDF Suez reported at the half-year mark, slightly above the average expectation of analysts surveyed by FactSet.
Some of the strongest growth came from France, which accounts for just over 35 percent of GDF's revenues. The company credited, in part, a favorable decision on gas prices this summer, when a state body overturned a freeze implemented by the government at the end of 2011. That is allowing GDF Suez to recoup millions of euros from customers.
GDF is also benefiting from a return to normal weather in France after an unusually warm early winter last year. In fact, weather has been on GDF's side all 2012, with a late-winter cold snap and a chilly summer. Revenues were up 15.2 percent in the country.
The company is also doing well in Asia, where revenue to Sept. 30 is up 18.8 percent, and Australia, where sales skyrocketed 40.3 percent, in part due to price increases.
GDF Suez, however, is struggling in its other home market of Belgium, where sales have slipped 5.9 percent over last year. The company said it is losing business customers there.
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The company has brought in ?70.9 billion ($91.9 billion) in the first nine months of 2012. It didn't break out figures for the third quarter, but that's ?20.4 billion more in revenue than GDF Suez reported at the half-year mark, slightly above the average expectation of analysts surveyed by FactSet.
Some of the strongest growth came from France, which accounts for just over 35 percent of GDF's revenues. The company credited, in part, a favorable decision on gas prices this summer, when a state body overturned a freeze implemented by the government at the end of 2011. That is allowing GDF Suez to recoup millions of euros from customers.
GDF is also benefiting from a return to normal weather in France after an unusually warm early winter last year. In fact, weather has been on GDF's side all 2012, with a late-winter cold snap and a chilly summer. Revenues were up 15.2 percent in the country.
The company is also doing well in Asia, where revenue to Sept. 30 is up 18.8 percent, and Australia, where sales skyrocketed 40.3 percent, in part due to price increases.
GDF Suez, however, is struggling in its other home market of Belgium, where sales have slipped 5.9 percent over last year. The company said it is losing business customers there.
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Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Nuclear plants weather hit from superstorm Sandy
ATLANTA (AP) - Superstorm Sandy forced three nuclear reactors to close by playing havoc with cooling water and electrical lines, but the nuclear industry took the pounding without suffering a major problem.
Nuclear plants are supposed to withstand hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, even a direct hit from a hijacked jetliner. But an earthquake and tsunami that caused multiple meltdowns last year at a nuclear plant in Japan has raised public scrutiny on how they perform during natural disasters.
Storm-related complications were blamed this week for forcing three nuclear reactors offline - Nine Mile Point Unit 1 northwest of Syracuse, N.Y., Indian Point Unit 3 about 25 miles north of New York City and the Salem plant's Unit 1 on the Delaware River in New Jersey.
Meanwhile, rising waters along the Barnegat Bay prompted officials to declare an 'alert,' the second-lowest in a four-tiered warning system, at Oyster Creek in New Jersey. That plant had earlier been taken out of service for a scheduled refueling, meaning it was not producing power.
Regulators and plant operators said none of the problems compromised safety.
'Hurricane Sandy once again demonstrates the robust construction of nuclear energy facilities, which are built to withstand extreme flooding and hurricane-force winds that are beyond that historically reported for each area,' said Marvin Fertel, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobbying group.
Some of the problems Monday were not unusual for the industry during large storms. When bad weather topples electrical lines and damages equipment, nuclear plants can be forced onto backup power to run critical systems or even shut down.
For example, Nine Mile Point's Unit 1 reactor shut down automatically around 9 p.m. Monday when an electrical fault occurred on power lines used to send electricity from the plant to the power grid, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. While that fault was probably caused by the storm, it was still under investigation Tuesday afternoon.
The second reactor at the site lost an incoming power line, which prompted a backup generator to start as a precaution. The second reactor was continuing to produce electricity. The facility serves about one million customers.
Indian Point's Unit 3 reactor, which is about 25 miles north of New York City, shut down Monday evening because of disturbances on the electrical grid caused by the storm, regulators said. Entergy Corp., which operates the plant, said there was no risk to employees or the public. The plant was not at risk due to water levels from the Hudson River, which reached 9 feet 8 inches and were subsiding. Unit 2 continued to operate.
The churning storm kicked up debris in the Delaware River that likely caused problems for the Unit 1 reactor at the Salem plant in Hancocks Bridge, N.J.
PSEG Nuclear spokesman Joe Delmar said plant operators manually stopped the reactor early Tuesday morning when four of six recirculation pumps failed in a cooling line that turns steam heated by the reactor back into water. Plant officials suspect the storm sent large amounts of marsh mud and grass into the water, which caused problems as the debris seeped into the cooling system, Delmar said.
Because its circulation system was not functioning normally, the plant was venting built-up steam into the atmosphere, NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said. That steam is isolated from the intense radiation deep inside a nuclear reactor and does not pose a health threat, Burnell said. It is possible that very small amounts of radioactive tritium might be present in the steam.
The second Salem unit has been offline since Oct. 14 for refueling, but the nearby Hope Creek plant remains at full power. Together, the Salem and Hope Creek plants produce enough power for about 3 million homes per day.
Rising waters caused the Oyster Creek plant in New Jersey to escalate to an 'alert' from the lowest emergency level, an unusual event. Officials blamed a rising tide, wind and storm surge for sending more water than normal into the plant's water intake structure. The plant, which is shut down for maintenance, also lost its electrical power from the grid. It used backup generators to power the equipment needed to cool its reactor. Plant operator Exelon said it can generate enough electricity to power 600,000 homes.
NRC officials reported that other plants continued operating but reduced their electrical output as a precaution, including the Millstone plant's Unit 3 reactor in Waterford, Conn., Vermont Yankee south of Brattleboro, Vt., and both reactors at the Limerick nuclear plant about 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The storm also appeared to knock out emergency sirens used to notify residents who live near the Oyster Creek and Peach Bottom plants in Pennsylvania, according to NRC reports.
___
Follow Ray Henry at http://twitter.com/rhenryAP.
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Nuclear plants are supposed to withstand hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, even a direct hit from a hijacked jetliner. But an earthquake and tsunami that caused multiple meltdowns last year at a nuclear plant in Japan has raised public scrutiny on how they perform during natural disasters.
Storm-related complications were blamed this week for forcing three nuclear reactors offline - Nine Mile Point Unit 1 northwest of Syracuse, N.Y., Indian Point Unit 3 about 25 miles north of New York City and the Salem plant's Unit 1 on the Delaware River in New Jersey.
Meanwhile, rising waters along the Barnegat Bay prompted officials to declare an 'alert,' the second-lowest in a four-tiered warning system, at Oyster Creek in New Jersey. That plant had earlier been taken out of service for a scheduled refueling, meaning it was not producing power.
Regulators and plant operators said none of the problems compromised safety.
'Hurricane Sandy once again demonstrates the robust construction of nuclear energy facilities, which are built to withstand extreme flooding and hurricane-force winds that are beyond that historically reported for each area,' said Marvin Fertel, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobbying group.
Some of the problems Monday were not unusual for the industry during large storms. When bad weather topples electrical lines and damages equipment, nuclear plants can be forced onto backup power to run critical systems or even shut down.
For example, Nine Mile Point's Unit 1 reactor shut down automatically around 9 p.m. Monday when an electrical fault occurred on power lines used to send electricity from the plant to the power grid, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. While that fault was probably caused by the storm, it was still under investigation Tuesday afternoon.
The second reactor at the site lost an incoming power line, which prompted a backup generator to start as a precaution. The second reactor was continuing to produce electricity. The facility serves about one million customers.
Indian Point's Unit 3 reactor, which is about 25 miles north of New York City, shut down Monday evening because of disturbances on the electrical grid caused by the storm, regulators said. Entergy Corp., which operates the plant, said there was no risk to employees or the public. The plant was not at risk due to water levels from the Hudson River, which reached 9 feet 8 inches and were subsiding. Unit 2 continued to operate.
The churning storm kicked up debris in the Delaware River that likely caused problems for the Unit 1 reactor at the Salem plant in Hancocks Bridge, N.J.
PSEG Nuclear spokesman Joe Delmar said plant operators manually stopped the reactor early Tuesday morning when four of six recirculation pumps failed in a cooling line that turns steam heated by the reactor back into water. Plant officials suspect the storm sent large amounts of marsh mud and grass into the water, which caused problems as the debris seeped into the cooling system, Delmar said.
Because its circulation system was not functioning normally, the plant was venting built-up steam into the atmosphere, NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said. That steam is isolated from the intense radiation deep inside a nuclear reactor and does not pose a health threat, Burnell said. It is possible that very small amounts of radioactive tritium might be present in the steam.
The second Salem unit has been offline since Oct. 14 for refueling, but the nearby Hope Creek plant remains at full power. Together, the Salem and Hope Creek plants produce enough power for about 3 million homes per day.
Rising waters caused the Oyster Creek plant in New Jersey to escalate to an 'alert' from the lowest emergency level, an unusual event. Officials blamed a rising tide, wind and storm surge for sending more water than normal into the plant's water intake structure. The plant, which is shut down for maintenance, also lost its electrical power from the grid. It used backup generators to power the equipment needed to cool its reactor. Plant operator Exelon said it can generate enough electricity to power 600,000 homes.
NRC officials reported that other plants continued operating but reduced their electrical output as a precaution, including the Millstone plant's Unit 3 reactor in Waterford, Conn., Vermont Yankee south of Brattleboro, Vt., and both reactors at the Limerick nuclear plant about 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The storm also appeared to knock out emergency sirens used to notify residents who live near the Oyster Creek and Peach Bottom plants in Pennsylvania, according to NRC reports.
___
Follow Ray Henry at http://twitter.com/rhenryAP.
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Washington D.C. escapes worst of storm Sandy
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The nation's capital appeared to have escaped the worst of the mammoth storm Sandy on Tuesday, although concerns remained about the potential for severe flooding along the Potomac River.
Washington, D.C., suffered high winds and rains that brought down trees on some homes and flooded a few roads. But the area got off lightly compared to New York City and New Jersey, where Sandy came ashore on Monday night.
More than 4 inches of rain fell over the course of the storm in Washington, the National Weather Service said Tuesday. Although Sandy has moved on, weather officials said flooding was still a concern.
'Flood and flash flood watches and warnings are in effect over portions of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast states,' the weather service said.
On Monday, the weather service warned that the storm was expected to cause the worst floods in 16 years along the Potomac River, starting on Tuesday night. This could affect the historic Georgetown neighborhood along the river and parts of the National Mall.
So far, the river's waters have swelled, reaching docks and some parkland, but have not yet caused more extensive problems. Washington Mayor Vincent Gray said the main flooding threat was over the next day or two.
'We need to be mindful of what could happen over the next 48 hours,' he told a news conference.
As for Sandy, it 'turned out a whole lot better than expected in the District of Columbia,' Gray said. 'We are prepared to be helpful if we can' to New York and New Jersey, he added.
Washington's Canal Road near the river was closed on Tuesday because of flooding, radio station WTOP said.
Power outages in the region appeared to be limited. Just over 139,000 people were without power Tuesday afternoon because of the severe weather, according to a Washington Post website tracking blackouts. The vast majority of these outages were in the suburbs of northern Virginia.
In Washington, 10,000 people lost power at the height of the storm, but the number had fallen to 2,000 by Tuesday afternoon, according to PEPCO, the local power company.
Federal agencies were scheduled to reopen on Wednesday after being closed for two days because of the storm. Federal workers will be allowed to take unscheduled leave on Wednesday, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management said.
Washington city government and schools were closed Tuesday, but Gray announced both would be open on Wednesday.
Gray said there had been 236 calls to the city government about downed trees -- but only 187 were actually trees down, 'the rest were limbs and debris.'
The Washington transit authority announced it was resuming limited rail service on the Metro on Tuesday afternoon. Normal service will resume on Wednesday.
Another sign that life was returning to normal: the DC Taxicab Commission said the surcharge it had authorized drivers to levy during the storm - $15 - expired at noon.
There were some reports of storm damage around town. In Washington's small Chinatown, a small metal piece of an ornate arch over the main street came loose and dangled precariously, causing police to block one lane of traffic below.
The White House announced President Barack Obama would eschew campaigning for re-election and stay in town Wednesday to oversee the hurricane response.
(Reporting by Susan Cornwell and Susan Heavey; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Stacey Joyce)
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Washington, D.C., suffered high winds and rains that brought down trees on some homes and flooded a few roads. But the area got off lightly compared to New York City and New Jersey, where Sandy came ashore on Monday night.
More than 4 inches of rain fell over the course of the storm in Washington, the National Weather Service said Tuesday. Although Sandy has moved on, weather officials said flooding was still a concern.
'Flood and flash flood watches and warnings are in effect over portions of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast states,' the weather service said.
On Monday, the weather service warned that the storm was expected to cause the worst floods in 16 years along the Potomac River, starting on Tuesday night. This could affect the historic Georgetown neighborhood along the river and parts of the National Mall.
So far, the river's waters have swelled, reaching docks and some parkland, but have not yet caused more extensive problems. Washington Mayor Vincent Gray said the main flooding threat was over the next day or two.
'We need to be mindful of what could happen over the next 48 hours,' he told a news conference.
As for Sandy, it 'turned out a whole lot better than expected in the District of Columbia,' Gray said. 'We are prepared to be helpful if we can' to New York and New Jersey, he added.
Washington's Canal Road near the river was closed on Tuesday because of flooding, radio station WTOP said.
Power outages in the region appeared to be limited. Just over 139,000 people were without power Tuesday afternoon because of the severe weather, according to a Washington Post website tracking blackouts. The vast majority of these outages were in the suburbs of northern Virginia.
In Washington, 10,000 people lost power at the height of the storm, but the number had fallen to 2,000 by Tuesday afternoon, according to PEPCO, the local power company.
Federal agencies were scheduled to reopen on Wednesday after being closed for two days because of the storm. Federal workers will be allowed to take unscheduled leave on Wednesday, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management said.
Washington city government and schools were closed Tuesday, but Gray announced both would be open on Wednesday.
Gray said there had been 236 calls to the city government about downed trees -- but only 187 were actually trees down, 'the rest were limbs and debris.'
The Washington transit authority announced it was resuming limited rail service on the Metro on Tuesday afternoon. Normal service will resume on Wednesday.
Another sign that life was returning to normal: the DC Taxicab Commission said the surcharge it had authorized drivers to levy during the storm - $15 - expired at noon.
There were some reports of storm damage around town. In Washington's small Chinatown, a small metal piece of an ornate arch over the main street came loose and dangled precariously, causing police to block one lane of traffic below.
The White House announced President Barack Obama would eschew campaigning for re-election and stay in town Wednesday to oversee the hurricane response.
(Reporting by Susan Cornwell and Susan Heavey; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Stacey Joyce)
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5 weather-related deaths in Pa. from storm
LEVITTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A one-two punch of rain and high wind from a monster hybrid storm that started out as a hurricane battered Pennsylvania, leaving more than a million customers without power as officials began assessing the damage Tuesday.
The storm soaked Philadelphia and its suburbs Monday night, but forecasters said the worst was behind the state by daybreak Tuesday.
Gov. Tom Corbett said landlocked Pennsylvania managed to avoid the catastrophic damage seen in coastal communities but still faced serious challenges from the powerful winds and heavy rains that lashed the state.
'Anybody without electricity is probably not saying we dodged a bullet,' he said.
The severity of the storm in Pennsylvania expressed itself through a set of increasingly worrisome numbers, from the hundreds of people who fled their homes in the southeastern part of the state to the power outages affecting more than 1.2 million customers by early Tuesday.
At least five deaths were attributed to the storm. They included an elderly Lancaster County man who fell from a tree he was trimming in advance of the approaching storm and a teen who struck a fallen tree while riding an ATV in Northampton County.
An 8-year-old boy died when a tree limb fell on him in Franklin Township, north of Montrose. In Berks County, a 62-year-old man died after a tree fell on top of a house in Pike Township near Boyertown. And in Somerset County, a woman died when the car she was riding in skidded off a snowy, slushy roadway and overturned into a pond.
PECO reported 585,000 without power in Philadelphia and nearby counties, a total which would fluctuate as residents awoke to find their service disrupted.
'This will still be multiple days,' PECO spokesman Fred Maher said Tuesday morning. 'We'll be able to get a lot of folks back up pretty quickly, but it'll take us several days to get everybody back to power.'
About 3,000 repairmen from Ohio, Kentucky and Chicago were poised to help the state's utilities restore service.
PPL Corp. said the storm caused 395,000 outages in its service territory, enough to rank it among the top 3 or 4 in its history. Crews were out at daybreak taking stock of the damage, and the company planned to send up a chopper to do an aerial survey. A spokesman said power might not be fully restored for a week or more.
'From a weather standpoint, this is a much larger, more powerful and dynamic storm than Hurricane Irene last year,' PPL spokesman Michael Wood said. 'Outages just accumulated remarkably fast.'
Between 2 and 6 inches of rain fell in eastern Pennsylvania, according to the National Weather Service. High winds were reported across the state with peak gusts of 81 mph reported in Allentown.
The storm snapped trees all over the state. Caution tape blocked both streets at one South Philadelphia intersection where splintered trees had landed on top of vehicles.
Downed trees and power lines and flooding forced a significant number of road closures across the eastern part of the state. PennDOT reopened Interstates 95 and 676 in the city and previously closed stretches of I-76 and 476 on Tuesday morning but reported much work still needed to be done.
High winds were so bad at one point PennDOT pulled its crews off the roads for a time for safety reasons, spokesman Charles Metzger said.
'As many trees as we're going after, we had more trees coming around our guys,' he said.
Government offices, many courts and countless schools were shuttered on Monday and remained closed at least through Tuesday. US Airways canceled all flights Tuesday out of Philadelphia International Airport and the city's transit system was preparing to assess damage before making a decision on restarting service.
Corbett extended Tuesday's absentee ballot application deadline for a day or two for counties where the courthouses were closed Monday, Tuesday or both.
Two juveniles were injured in Levittown on Monday night, one of them seriously, when a tree fell on them while they were outside during the storm, said John D. Dougherty Jr., the county's director of emergency services. Fallen trees also slowed fire trucks responding to a house fire in Tinicum Township, he said, and the home burned to the ground; no one was injured.
Flooding, a major fear following last year's inundations, proved to be only a minor issue by Tuesday morning.
The biggest concern in Blair County was the Juniata River. County emergency management director Dan Boyles was optimistic Tuesday morning after it appeared the worst of the storm had passed.
'Water-wise, we're in great shape. No flooding whatsoever,' Boyles said. 'The Juniata held. ... Our only concern is the duration of the power outages.'
The National Weather Service said breezy and rainy weather will persist through Tuesday, but wind gusts aren't likely to top 30 mph as the storm's center churns through central Pennsylvania. Snow associated with the hybrid storm hit upper elevations in western Pennsylvania, including 9 inches reported on Mount Davis, the highest point in the state.
The Red Cross set up 58 evacuation centers that could shelter 31,000 people. Hundreds of people were evacuated in the Philadelphia suburbs of Bensalem Township and Darby Borough, where officials feared overnight floods.
'I'm not going through this again,' said Sheila Gladden, who left her home in Philadelphia's Eastwick neighborhood. 'They're telling me this is going to be worse than (1999 Hurricane) Floyd because this is some superstorm. I'm not going back until the water's receded.'
President Barack Obama signed an emergency declaration for Pennsylvania early Monday that will allow state officials to request federal funding and other storm assistance.
___
PECO is a subsidiary of Exelon Corp.
___
Associated Press writers Genaro C. Armas in State College, Pa., and Randy Pennell in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
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The storm soaked Philadelphia and its suburbs Monday night, but forecasters said the worst was behind the state by daybreak Tuesday.
Gov. Tom Corbett said landlocked Pennsylvania managed to avoid the catastrophic damage seen in coastal communities but still faced serious challenges from the powerful winds and heavy rains that lashed the state.
'Anybody without electricity is probably not saying we dodged a bullet,' he said.
The severity of the storm in Pennsylvania expressed itself through a set of increasingly worrisome numbers, from the hundreds of people who fled their homes in the southeastern part of the state to the power outages affecting more than 1.2 million customers by early Tuesday.
At least five deaths were attributed to the storm. They included an elderly Lancaster County man who fell from a tree he was trimming in advance of the approaching storm and a teen who struck a fallen tree while riding an ATV in Northampton County.
An 8-year-old boy died when a tree limb fell on him in Franklin Township, north of Montrose. In Berks County, a 62-year-old man died after a tree fell on top of a house in Pike Township near Boyertown. And in Somerset County, a woman died when the car she was riding in skidded off a snowy, slushy roadway and overturned into a pond.
PECO reported 585,000 without power in Philadelphia and nearby counties, a total which would fluctuate as residents awoke to find their service disrupted.
'This will still be multiple days,' PECO spokesman Fred Maher said Tuesday morning. 'We'll be able to get a lot of folks back up pretty quickly, but it'll take us several days to get everybody back to power.'
About 3,000 repairmen from Ohio, Kentucky and Chicago were poised to help the state's utilities restore service.
PPL Corp. said the storm caused 395,000 outages in its service territory, enough to rank it among the top 3 or 4 in its history. Crews were out at daybreak taking stock of the damage, and the company planned to send up a chopper to do an aerial survey. A spokesman said power might not be fully restored for a week or more.
'From a weather standpoint, this is a much larger, more powerful and dynamic storm than Hurricane Irene last year,' PPL spokesman Michael Wood said. 'Outages just accumulated remarkably fast.'
Between 2 and 6 inches of rain fell in eastern Pennsylvania, according to the National Weather Service. High winds were reported across the state with peak gusts of 81 mph reported in Allentown.
The storm snapped trees all over the state. Caution tape blocked both streets at one South Philadelphia intersection where splintered trees had landed on top of vehicles.
Downed trees and power lines and flooding forced a significant number of road closures across the eastern part of the state. PennDOT reopened Interstates 95 and 676 in the city and previously closed stretches of I-76 and 476 on Tuesday morning but reported much work still needed to be done.
High winds were so bad at one point PennDOT pulled its crews off the roads for a time for safety reasons, spokesman Charles Metzger said.
'As many trees as we're going after, we had more trees coming around our guys,' he said.
Government offices, many courts and countless schools were shuttered on Monday and remained closed at least through Tuesday. US Airways canceled all flights Tuesday out of Philadelphia International Airport and the city's transit system was preparing to assess damage before making a decision on restarting service.
Corbett extended Tuesday's absentee ballot application deadline for a day or two for counties where the courthouses were closed Monday, Tuesday or both.
Two juveniles were injured in Levittown on Monday night, one of them seriously, when a tree fell on them while they were outside during the storm, said John D. Dougherty Jr., the county's director of emergency services. Fallen trees also slowed fire trucks responding to a house fire in Tinicum Township, he said, and the home burned to the ground; no one was injured.
Flooding, a major fear following last year's inundations, proved to be only a minor issue by Tuesday morning.
The biggest concern in Blair County was the Juniata River. County emergency management director Dan Boyles was optimistic Tuesday morning after it appeared the worst of the storm had passed.
'Water-wise, we're in great shape. No flooding whatsoever,' Boyles said. 'The Juniata held. ... Our only concern is the duration of the power outages.'
The National Weather Service said breezy and rainy weather will persist through Tuesday, but wind gusts aren't likely to top 30 mph as the storm's center churns through central Pennsylvania. Snow associated with the hybrid storm hit upper elevations in western Pennsylvania, including 9 inches reported on Mount Davis, the highest point in the state.
The Red Cross set up 58 evacuation centers that could shelter 31,000 people. Hundreds of people were evacuated in the Philadelphia suburbs of Bensalem Township and Darby Borough, where officials feared overnight floods.
'I'm not going through this again,' said Sheila Gladden, who left her home in Philadelphia's Eastwick neighborhood. 'They're telling me this is going to be worse than (1999 Hurricane) Floyd because this is some superstorm. I'm not going back until the water's receded.'
President Barack Obama signed an emergency declaration for Pennsylvania early Monday that will allow state officials to request federal funding and other storm assistance.
___
PECO is a subsidiary of Exelon Corp.
___
Associated Press writers Genaro C. Armas in State College, Pa., and Randy Pennell in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
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National Weather Service says snow from superstorm still possible in western North Carolina
RALEIGH, N.C. - Snow is still falling in some parts of western North Carolina, with the National Weather Service warning that heavy snow is possible in the winter onslaught spawned by the merger of artic air with superstorm Sandy.
On the state's western border with Tennessee, Great Smoky Mountains National Park spokeswoman Dana Soehn reported 22 inches of snow at the highest elevations, with strong winds blowing drifts up to 4 feet deep.
Roads are closed throughout the park and a handful of hikers coming off sections of the Appalachian Trial on Tuesday morning reporting tangles of fallen trees and waist-deep drifts.
'We don't know exactly how many people are still up there, but we've not received any distress calls,' Soehn said. 'It's that heavy, wet snow, so it is difficult to plow.'
Forecasters said Tuesday morning that snowfall in the western North Carolina mountains totalled as much as five inches so far. Only Jefferson in Ashe County was reporting snow at 6 a.m.
Icy roads were reported in Madison, Yancey, Mitchell and Avery counties. Much of the Blue Ridge Parkway in western North Carolina is closed.
Watauga County Emergency Services Director Jeff Virginia reported that a couple inches of snow was on the ground in Boone, with scattered power outages but no widespread problems.
Asheville received only a light dusting of snow, with a forecast for one or two inches to fall Tuesday. The weather service says up to four to six inches of snow is possible in the higher elevations.
A winter storm warning continues in effect until 6 a.m. Wednesday for Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Haywood, Madison, Mitchell, Swain, Watauga, Yancey and northern Jackson counties. Winds are expected to range from 25 to 35 mph with gusts of up to 60 mph.
_
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On the state's western border with Tennessee, Great Smoky Mountains National Park spokeswoman Dana Soehn reported 22 inches of snow at the highest elevations, with strong winds blowing drifts up to 4 feet deep.
Roads are closed throughout the park and a handful of hikers coming off sections of the Appalachian Trial on Tuesday morning reporting tangles of fallen trees and waist-deep drifts.
'We don't know exactly how many people are still up there, but we've not received any distress calls,' Soehn said. 'It's that heavy, wet snow, so it is difficult to plow.'
Forecasters said Tuesday morning that snowfall in the western North Carolina mountains totalled as much as five inches so far. Only Jefferson in Ashe County was reporting snow at 6 a.m.
Icy roads were reported in Madison, Yancey, Mitchell and Avery counties. Much of the Blue Ridge Parkway in western North Carolina is closed.
Watauga County Emergency Services Director Jeff Virginia reported that a couple inches of snow was on the ground in Boone, with scattered power outages but no widespread problems.
Asheville received only a light dusting of snow, with a forecast for one or two inches to fall Tuesday. The weather service says up to four to six inches of snow is possible in the higher elevations.
A winter storm warning continues in effect until 6 a.m. Wednesday for Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Haywood, Madison, Mitchell, Swain, Watauga, Yancey and northern Jackson counties. Winds are expected to range from 25 to 35 mph with gusts of up to 60 mph.
_
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One Week To Go: Super Storm Stalls Presidential Politics (The Note)
By MICHAEL FALCONE ( @michaelpfalcone ) and AMY WALTER ( @amyewalter )
NOTABLES:
THE LATEST ON THE STORM: ABC's weather guru Sam Champion reports: Sandy came on shore packing the punch of a Super Storm. It's is currently bringing heavy snow storms inland, and tropical storm force winds over the entire eastern seaboard. In New York, Sandy brought a record high tide of nearly 14 feet in the Battery. Unprecedented flooding caused back-up generators to fail at NYU medical center. Power is out in most of lower Manhattan and the latest estimates have more than 7 million people without power in 11 states. And the storm hasn't passed yet- there will be almost Hurricane force winds continuing throughout the day today in the affected areas. http://abcn.ws/SujfOP
SANDY AND OBAMA: ABC's Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper reports from Orlando, Fla.: Overnight President Obama spoke with Governors Cuomo (New York) and Christie (New Jersey), as well as Mayors Bloomberg (NYC), Healy (Jersey City) and Booker (Newark). White House officials say the president was updated throughout the night on the impacts of Sandy as it came ashore and moved inland. As for the Major Disaster declarations announced this morning for New Jersey and New York - they provide additional federal resources to the state as they respond - it makes additional federal funding streams (for additional activities) and resources available on top of all that has already been made available, including through the emergency declarations for both states that the President granted before landfall.
SANDY AND ROMNEY: The Romney campaign announced that today Mitt Romney is scheduled to attend a storm relief event at the James S. Trent Arena in Kettering, Ohio, where he will help collect donations for storm-relief efforts. In addition: 'Paul Ryan will be in Wisconsin to drop by the La Crosse Victory Center in La Crosse and the Hudson Victory Center in Hudson, where he will thank volunteers who are delivering or collecting items for storm relief efforts. . And Ann Romney will also attend events in Wisconsin and then travel to Iowa. She will visit the Green Bay Victory Office in Wisconsin, the Davenport Victory Center in Iowa as well as the Cedar Rapids Victory Office in Iowa, where she will participate in storm relief collection efforts. She will then attend a Victory Rally at the Temple for the Performing Arts in Des Moines, Iowa.'
COUNTDOWN TO ELECTION DAY: There are 7 days to go until Nov. 6, 2012. Here are the ABC News battleground state rankings: http://bitly.com/TU77sc
THE NOTE:
Exactly one week from today Americans across the country will go to the polls to pick the next president of the United States.
But this morning people in many parts of the East Coast are waking up to the destruction left in the wake of what one ABC News reporter described as a 'liquid fist' that pounded the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
According to the Associated Press, the storm took the lives of 'at least 17 people in seven states' and cut off power to nearly 7.5 million residents.
Both presidential candidates curtailed their campaign schedules yesterday and while President Obama remains in Washington, DC to monitor the storm situation from the White House today, his opponent, Mitt Romney, attends a storm relief event in Ohio.
Campaign surrogates, including Bill Clinton and Ann Romney, will continue to hit the trail. And as ABC's Jonathan Karl points out, the campaign has not entirely come to a halt. Both sides traded attacks over dueling television ads on the auto bailout yesterday and those ads continue to run on cable and broadcast in the states.
Meanwhile, in response to recent polls and signals from the campaigns, ABC News moved two states - Minnesota and Pennsylvania - from 'Solid Democratic' to 'Lean Democratic' (more on that below).
But whatever might happen next Tuesday, it's clear that today, as the effects of the storm continue to be felt further north and as recovery and clean-up efforts begin, presidential politics will not be the focus.
Tomorrow, of course, is another day.
Keep an eye on ABC News.com for our next ABC News-Washington Post tracking poll at 5p.m. today: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/polls/
NOTE IT!
The Note's virtual political roundtable:
ABC's RICK KLEIN: The trail isn't supposed to come to this kind of dead end, and nowhere in a campaign playbook does a path out of it get mapped. Beyond disruptions in early voting and actual campaigning, there's the news vacuum in Sandy's wake. President Obama can tour damage and Mitt Romney can sling supplies, but the fact is neither candidate knows quite what to do after that. The campaign ads continue unabated - and never have they seemed more discordant than when the break up scenes of devastation. Politics will return faster than power in many homes, but the campaign must and will feel different over the last week.
CHRIS CHRISTIE: 'THE ADMINISTRATION. HAS BEEN OUTSTANDING.' Speaking to ABC's George Stephanopoulos on 'Good Morning America New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had high praise for the administration's handling of the storm so far. 'I have to say the administration, the President himself and FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate have been outstanding with us so far' Christie said. 'We have a great partnership with them, and I want to thank the President personally for his personal attention to this.' And in an interview on Fox News, Christie said now was not a time for politics: 'I have a job in New Jersey that is much bigger than presidential politics,' he said. 'I couldn't care less about that.' http://abcn.ws/ SrsgJr
FROM A FRIEND OF THE NOTE: One smart GOP strategist and writes in: 'There's a positively Giuliani-esque quality to Christie right now - seeing an opportunity and seizing it. Between his convention speech and wet kiss to POTUS on all of the morning shows, it's remarkably clear how he wants this election to turn out, and it's not with a Romney win.'
ABC MOVES PENNSYLVANIA, MINNESOTA FROM SAFE TO LEAN. ABC News Political Director Amy Walter explains the changes to the electoral map: With one week to go, states that were once considered Obama strongholds now look less solid. Republican groups are putting resources into Minnesota and Pennsylvania. Team Obama brushes off these incursions as wishful thinking by Republicans, but noticeably they are putting money and muscle into both states. Minnesota has been added to Bill Clinton's schedule. And, Obama campaign officials admitted that they will once again start running ads in Pennsylvania. http://abcn.ws/TqNIOC
THE BUZZ:
with Elizabeth Hartfield ( @LizHartfield)
BIDEN, CLINTON CAMPAIGN IN OHIO AS OBAMA MONITORS HURRICANE SANDY. While Hurricane Sandy punished the East Coast, Vice President Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton stayed on the campaign trail Monday, speaking at the Covelli Center in Youngstown, Ohio Monday afternoon reports ABC's Arlette Saenz. President Obama canceled his campaign appearances for Monday and Tuesday to monitor the hurricane from Washington. Biden and Clinton, campaigning together for the first time this election cycle, did not let up on their attacks on the GOP ticket, furthering the criticism of Mitt Romney for a misleading campaign ad suggesting President Obama allowed Jeep operations to move to China. President Clinton called Romney's ad 'the biggest load of bull.' http://abcn.ws/RjzTx0
POLITICS OF FEMA: MITT ROMNEY SUGGESTED LESS FEDERAL INVOLVEMENT. ABC's Zach Wolf reports, as the nation's attention turns to the storm and the federal government gears up to assist states, it is worth noting how funding for FEMA and disaster relief have featured in national politics and the presidential race. Should FEMA be reformed to put a stronger emphasis on the states and less of an emphasis on federal aid? 'Absolutely,' said Mitt Romney during a June 13, 2011, GOP primary debate. But a Romney campaign spokeswoman said today not to read too much into the exchange from 2011, that it does not mean Romney wants to institute cuts for FEMA. 'Gov. Romney believes that states should be in charge of emergency management in responding to storms and other natural disasters in their jurisdictions,' said Amanda Hennenberg. http://abcn.ws/Rjrfi1
PERILS OF PRE-TAPE: PRESIDENT OBAMA TALKS IPOD ON RADIO AS HURRICANE HITS. ABC's Jake Tapper and Devin Dwyer report, as Hurricane Sandy barreled toward the Mid-Atlantic and the White House scrambled to get the commander in chief back to Washington, President Obama could be heard on the radio airwaves in battleground Ohio talking about his iPod. 'I've got a pretty good mix. I've got old school. Stevie Wonder and James Brown. I've got Rolling Stones. Bob Dylan. And then I've got everything from Jay-Z to Eminem to the Fugees to you name it,' Obama told DJ E.J. Greig of Cincinnati's 101.1 The Wiz in a pre-taped interview. The seven-minute interview was taped Saturday during Obama's campaign stop in New Hampshire. http://abcn.ws/XOpMX0
MISLEADING ROMNEY AD ON JEEPS DRAWS OBAMA RETORT. ABC's Devin Dwyer and Emily Friedman report, a misleading TV ad from Republican nominee Mitt Romney has prompted spirited objections from independent fact-checkers and Democrats for suggesting incorrectly, just days before the election, that automaker Chrysler is moving Jeep production out of Ohio to China. 'Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy, and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China,' the Romney ad says. 'Mitt Romney will fight for every American job.' http://abcn.ws/TQvq5p
SWING STATE SNAPSHOT: WILL VIRGINIA STAY WITH OBAMA? In this final week before the election, ABC News takes a closer look at the 10 battleground states that will make or break the election. Today we look at Virginia. Virginia is a new swing state. In the last 40 years, going back to 1972 it has only gone blue once - and that was in 2008 reports ABC's Elizabeth Hartfield. Prior to Barack Obama's victory in the commonwealth, no Democratic presidential candidate had won Virginia since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The state's changing demographics - an increase in the minority population, plus the increase in young white college graduates living in the state - has contributed to the state becoming more friendly to Democrats in recent years. Plus, the state's low unemployment rate - 5.9 percent in September - helps boost Obama and the Democrats. http://abcn.ws/V3AhpK
CITING SANDY, SEN. SCOTT BROWN PULLS OUT OF FINAL MASS SENATE DEBATE. Hurricane Sandy isn't just affecting the presidential race. It's hitting farther down the ballot as well reports ABC's Elizabeth Hartfield. The campaign for Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., who is in a tightly contested race with a Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren, announced that Brown would not be participating in the fourth and final televised Senate debate scheduled to take place on Tuesday night. http://abcn.ws/TqTIH3
GAFFE-PRONE CANDIDATE'S HURT GOP SENATE CHANCES. The Associated Press's Andrew Taylor reports: 'Republicans hopeful of taking over the Senate should be measuring the drapes. But a series of blown opportunities two years ago and again this year has cost Republicans dearly in their quest for a Senate majority. Flawed, gaffe-prone nominees may have cost them the chance to win three seats in the 2010 GOP wave. Now, an easy pickup in Missouri and a longtime GOP seat in Indiana are in question after high-profile stumbles on rape and abortion.' http://apne.ws/Yi6dpf
PROVISIONAL BALLOTS COULD KEEP OHIO'S PRESIDENTIAL OUTCOME IN DOUBT. The Cleveland Plain Dealer's Harlan Spector reports: 'As the presidential race narrows in Ohio, the Buckeye State runs the risk of preventing the United States from calling a winner for days after the Nov. 6 election. A wild card in declaring a winner on Election Night could be thousands provisional ballots. Provisionals are given to voters when their eligibility is in question, often because of address changes or discrepancies. Election boards hold the ballots 10 days to determine eligibility. Ohio is said to have one of the highest provisional ballot rates in the country. More than 200,000 provisional ballots were cast in Ohio in 2008. About 40,000 were determined to be ineligible.' http://bit.ly/RqsQpM
SANDY COULD DELAY FINAL PRE-ELECTION JOBS REPORT. The Washington Post's Rachel Weiner reports: 'The Labor Department has not yet ruled out delaying Friday's jobs report due to the havoc caused by Hurricane Sandy. 'The employees at the Bureau of Labor Statistics are working hard to ensure the timely release of employment data on Friday, November 2,' the BLS said in a statement. 'It is our intention that Friday will be business as usual regarding the October Employment Situation Report.' Intense security measures surrounding the monthly jobs reports mean the numbers cannot be crunched remotely.' http://wapo.st/PgBEPf
WILL THIS ELECTION BE A REPRISE OF 2000? USA Today's Susan Page reports: 'If the election were held today, national and statewide polls indicate there might well be a split decision: President Obama winning the Electoral College and Republican Mitt Romney carrying the popular vote. Activists on both sides are braced for Election Day problems over new voter procedures in such key states as Virginia and Ohio. And a razor-close finish automatically would prompt recounts in Colorado, Florida, Ohio and elsewhere. The Romney camp dismisses speculation about the prospect of winning the popular vote only to lose the Electoral College. 'We are confident we will win the election decisively on Nov. 6,' press secretary Andrea Saul says. In an interview just before the Democratic National Convention last month, USA TODAY asked Obama if he had thought about the possibility of a split decision. 'I won't speculate on how the election is going to turn out,'' he replied. 'This is going to be a close election.'' http://usat.ly/Ygvv71
MEDICARE FAILS TO SWAY SENIOR VOTERS. The Wall Street Journal's Arian Campo-Flores reports: 'Mr. Romney needs not only to win among senior citizens but to win big. In the 2008 presidential election, Republican Sen. John McCain captured the group by an 8% margin in Florida but lost the state to President Barack Obama. Florida opened eight days of early voting on Saturday. Polls now show Mr. Romney leading among the state's elderly voters by 6% to 12%-a sign he may be weathering reasonably well the charges by Democrats that he and running mate Paul Ryan would undermine Medicare. Among all voters in Florida, Mr. Romney leads Mr. Obama by an average of less than 2%.' http://on.wsj.com/SrfjPD
WHO'S TWEETING?
@senijr_ABC : #Sandy caused damage to piers and parts of the famed boardwalk across Atlantic City as the cleanup begins pic.twitter.com/u9aixikU
@jodikantor : Lots of hopeful tweets asking if campaigns and Superpacs would donate their remaining millions towards Sandy relief.
@ByronYork : Obama campaign scoffs, but Romney aides believe OH is moving, and Romney is moving up. http://ow.ly/eSuKA
@RealClearScott :My story from Fri on Romney eyeing 3 'reach' states: PA, MI & MN. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/10/27/pa_among_reach_states_tempting_romney_camp_115937.html .
@Ari_Shapiro : Lots of Qs in the press corps today on how Romney's OH 'storm relief event' is diff from a 'campaign event.' Same venue, same celeb guests.
Also Read
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Monday, October 29, 2012
Metro NYC airports are closed due to weather; flights were previously suspended
NEW YORK, N.Y. - The airports in metropolitan New York City have been closed due to flooding.
The Port Authority of new York and New Jersey says that by Monday night, LaGuardia, Newark Liberty and Kennedy airports had been shut down until further notice.
For much of the day, the airports were technically open though flights were not coming or going.
This news article is brought to you by INTERNET NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
The Port Authority of new York and New Jersey says that by Monday night, LaGuardia, Newark Liberty and Kennedy airports had been shut down until further notice.
For much of the day, the airports were technically open though flights were not coming or going.
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Washington Metro to remain closed on Tuesday morning
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Major public transportation in Washington, halted because of Hurricane Sandy, will not resume on Tuesday morning, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority said.
Metrorail and Metrobus service will remain suspended due to the hurricane, which is expected to cause widespread havoc in the capital on Monday evening and early on Tuesday morning.
WMATA said it will make an announcement on the timing of restored service after it is able to assess damage and weather conditions on Tuesday morning.
(Reporting By Karey Wutkowski; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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Metrorail and Metrobus service will remain suspended due to the hurricane, which is expected to cause widespread havoc in the capital on Monday evening and early on Tuesday morning.
WMATA said it will make an announcement on the timing of restored service after it is able to assess damage and weather conditions on Tuesday morning.
(Reporting By Karey Wutkowski; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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Weather or Climate: What Caused Hurricane Sandy?
An unusual trio of weather factors conspired to create Hurricane Sandy, the enormous storm churning toward the mid-Atlantic states today - that much is clear. What researchers aren't as sure of is how much climate change influenced this particular storm.
Attributing a certain event to climate change is always tricky territory, so much so that some scientists contacted by LiveScience said it was too early to make any judgments. Others were more willing to say that global warming contributed to, but did not cause, the massive Category 1 storm.
'The climate influences on this are what we might call the 'new normal,' the changed environment this storm is operating in,' Kevin Trenberth, who heads the climate analysis section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told LiveScience.
Sandy's cause
In the immediate term, three factors have come together to make Sandy what it is: A huge storm with winds gusting up to 90 mph (145 kph) set to make landfall somewhere on the East Coast Monday night. First, hurricane season is still on, meaning the tropics are still actively generating storms. That's Sandy's origin. [Photos: Hurricane Sandy From Space]
But a storm like Sandy would normally be losing steam by now as it moved into colder, less energetic waters, said David Robinson, a Rutgers University professor and New Jersey's state climatologist. In this case, however, a trough of low pressure dipping down from the Arctic is feeding the hurricane, actually strengthening its intensity as it moves northward. (Higher tides because of a full moon may also increase flooding from the storm.)
Those conditions are the same as 1991's 'Perfect Storm,' a tempest that occurred when a nor'easter fed by Arctic air absorbed Hurricane Grace. But that storm never made landfall. The third weather factor feeding Sandy, a high-pressure system, is pushing the hurricane onshore, making this 'about the worst case imaginable,' Robinson said.
That block of high pressure in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean is shunting Sandy toward land like a peg in a pinball machine.
'You've got three factors here that have come together in just the right pattern to create a storm of this type,' Robinson told LiveScience. 'That's why it's very rare.'
Climate change and Hurricane Sandy
The more complex question is whether global warming has played a supporting role in the storm's strength. Trenberth said there is reason to think that climate change could be making Sandy wetter and stronger.
Hurricanes and tropical cyclones are fueled by warm water evaporating into the air. Ocean surface temperatures are up 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius) from about a century ago, a fact that may boost storm intensity. A recent study released in September in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, for example, found that hurricanes and tropical cyclones ramp up faster than they did 25 years ago. Globally, these storms reach Category 3 status, with winds up to 129 mph (208 kph), nine hours earlier on average than they used to, the study found.
With warmer ocean surfaces comes warmer air above the oceans, Trenberth said. With warmer temperatures, this ocean air now holds about 4 percent more moisture than it did in the 1970s.
'In general, we estimate it increases the risk that the intensity of hurricanes can be somewhat greater and particularly the rainfall from hurricanes is about 5 to 10 percent greater than it otherwise would be,' Trenberth said. [Video: Hurricane Sandy's Intensity]
In the case of 2005's Hurricane Katrina, which dumped at least 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain along its track on the Gulf Coast, that means about 1 inch was attributable to climate change, Trenberth said. Sandy could dump similar levels of moisture over the Northeast.
Trenberth added that 'there are signs' that storms of Category 3 and above are becoming more common, but warned that hurricanes show tremendous natural variability from year to year, driven largely by climate patterns set up by El Niño.
That sort of variability made Robinson wary of attributing any of Sandy's destructive power to climate change.
'I told myself when I got up this morning, 'I'm not going to talk about climate change,'' Robinson said. 'You can't take one rogue event like this and start ascribing anything but the current three phasing conditions that are leading to it.'
Robinson didn't rule out that storms may get worse in a warming world, however.
'I wish I was going to be around 50 years from now sitting here in this position, because we might be able to say that with the warming of the atmosphere and the greater energy of it, we can reel off these superstorms more frequently,' he said. 'To say that this one is associated with that would really be doing a disservice to the science.'
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
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Attributing a certain event to climate change is always tricky territory, so much so that some scientists contacted by LiveScience said it was too early to make any judgments. Others were more willing to say that global warming contributed to, but did not cause, the massive Category 1 storm.
'The climate influences on this are what we might call the 'new normal,' the changed environment this storm is operating in,' Kevin Trenberth, who heads the climate analysis section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told LiveScience.
Sandy's cause
In the immediate term, three factors have come together to make Sandy what it is: A huge storm with winds gusting up to 90 mph (145 kph) set to make landfall somewhere on the East Coast Monday night. First, hurricane season is still on, meaning the tropics are still actively generating storms. That's Sandy's origin. [Photos: Hurricane Sandy From Space]
But a storm like Sandy would normally be losing steam by now as it moved into colder, less energetic waters, said David Robinson, a Rutgers University professor and New Jersey's state climatologist. In this case, however, a trough of low pressure dipping down from the Arctic is feeding the hurricane, actually strengthening its intensity as it moves northward. (Higher tides because of a full moon may also increase flooding from the storm.)
Those conditions are the same as 1991's 'Perfect Storm,' a tempest that occurred when a nor'easter fed by Arctic air absorbed Hurricane Grace. But that storm never made landfall. The third weather factor feeding Sandy, a high-pressure system, is pushing the hurricane onshore, making this 'about the worst case imaginable,' Robinson said.
That block of high pressure in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean is shunting Sandy toward land like a peg in a pinball machine.
'You've got three factors here that have come together in just the right pattern to create a storm of this type,' Robinson told LiveScience. 'That's why it's very rare.'
Climate change and Hurricane Sandy
The more complex question is whether global warming has played a supporting role in the storm's strength. Trenberth said there is reason to think that climate change could be making Sandy wetter and stronger.
Hurricanes and tropical cyclones are fueled by warm water evaporating into the air. Ocean surface temperatures are up 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius) from about a century ago, a fact that may boost storm intensity. A recent study released in September in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, for example, found that hurricanes and tropical cyclones ramp up faster than they did 25 years ago. Globally, these storms reach Category 3 status, with winds up to 129 mph (208 kph), nine hours earlier on average than they used to, the study found.
With warmer ocean surfaces comes warmer air above the oceans, Trenberth said. With warmer temperatures, this ocean air now holds about 4 percent more moisture than it did in the 1970s.
'In general, we estimate it increases the risk that the intensity of hurricanes can be somewhat greater and particularly the rainfall from hurricanes is about 5 to 10 percent greater than it otherwise would be,' Trenberth said. [Video: Hurricane Sandy's Intensity]
In the case of 2005's Hurricane Katrina, which dumped at least 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain along its track on the Gulf Coast, that means about 1 inch was attributable to climate change, Trenberth said. Sandy could dump similar levels of moisture over the Northeast.
Trenberth added that 'there are signs' that storms of Category 3 and above are becoming more common, but warned that hurricanes show tremendous natural variability from year to year, driven largely by climate patterns set up by El Niño.
That sort of variability made Robinson wary of attributing any of Sandy's destructive power to climate change.
'I told myself when I got up this morning, 'I'm not going to talk about climate change,'' Robinson said. 'You can't take one rogue event like this and start ascribing anything but the current three phasing conditions that are leading to it.'
Robinson didn't rule out that storms may get worse in a warming world, however.
'I wish I was going to be around 50 years from now sitting here in this position, because we might be able to say that with the warming of the atmosphere and the greater energy of it, we can reel off these superstorms more frequently,' he said. 'To say that this one is associated with that would really be doing a disservice to the science.'
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
- The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted
- Weather vs. Climate Change: Test Yourself
- In Photos: Hurricane Season 2012
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Sunday, October 28, 2012
American Airlines suspends operations due to Hurricane Sandy
(Reuters) - U.S. airlines American Airlines and American Eagle said on Sunday they will be suspending operations at a number of airports in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions due to severe weather from Hurricane Sandy.
The shutdown starts from late on Sunday and would last until about midday on Wednesday, the airlines said.
The companies said it was also possible additional delays might be seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and some scheduled flights might be canceled beyond Wednesday.
(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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The shutdown starts from late on Sunday and would last until about midday on Wednesday, the airlines said.
The companies said it was also possible additional delays might be seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and some scheduled flights might be canceled beyond Wednesday.
(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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Companies delay earnings reports due to hurricane
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Drugmaker Pfizer Inc and power companies Entergy Corp and NRG Energy Inc said they would postpone releasing quarterly earnings results because of the hurricane approaching the U.S. Northeast.
Pfizer and Entergy had been due to report their third-quarter results on Tuesday. NRG was scheduled to release its results on Wednesday.
Pfizer rescheduled the release of its results and its conference call with analysts until Thursday, November 1, citing 'the expected severe weather conditions associated with Hurricane Sandy.'
Entergy pushed its conference call back to November 5. It said it was making the move in consideration of those preparing for the storm.
NRG rescheduled its third-quarter earnings call until November 2.
Other companies, such as energy company Anadarko Corp, are going forward with their earnings releases as planned. Anadarko will announce its results on Monday afternoon, according to a company spokesman.
NYSE's closure of its physical trading floor operations on Monday is the first in nearly three decades due to a weather-related emergency. But it said it would move trading of NYSE-listed stocks to its fully electronic exchange as Hurricane Sandy forced the New York mass transit system to shut down.
(This story is refiled to correct the timing of Anadarko earnings in sixth paragraph)
(Reporting by Michael Erman, Editing by Gary Crosse)
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Pfizer and Entergy had been due to report their third-quarter results on Tuesday. NRG was scheduled to release its results on Wednesday.
Pfizer rescheduled the release of its results and its conference call with analysts until Thursday, November 1, citing 'the expected severe weather conditions associated with Hurricane Sandy.'
Entergy pushed its conference call back to November 5. It said it was making the move in consideration of those preparing for the storm.
NRG rescheduled its third-quarter earnings call until November 2.
Other companies, such as energy company Anadarko Corp
NYSE's closure of its physical trading floor operations on Monday is the first in nearly three decades due to a weather-related emergency. But it said it would move trading of NYSE-listed stocks to its fully electronic exchange as Hurricane Sandy forced the New York mass transit system to shut down.
(This story is refiled to correct the timing of Anadarko earnings in sixth paragraph)
(Reporting by Michael Erman, Editing by Gary Crosse)
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Tone turns ominous at The Weather Channel
NEW YORK (AP) - The Weather Channel had its third straight day of a round-the-clock vigil for the approaching superstorm, and the tone of its meteorologists turned more ominous Sunday with evidence building that their forecasts would come true.
The network is planning to live-stream its television coverage online so people in the eastern United States who lose power can keep up with the news on their mobile devices. The storm is expected to affect some 50 million people.
'We want you to know we are not hyping this storm, OK?' on-air meteorologist Vivian Brown said. 'We don't do that at The Weather Channel because we want you to be alert and aware.'
Other television networks mixed news of Hurricane Sandy with stories like the presidential campaign. In New York, the local CBS outlet ran a split screen with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie delivering a storm briefing Sunday afternoon and the New York Jets' game against the Miami Dolphins.
But Hurricane Sandy, which is mixing with other weather systems to create a storm of unprecedented strength in the region, kept the undivided attention of The Weather Channel.
The network's Julie Martin, stationed on a beach in Nags Head, N.C., looked increasingly weary of the wind and rain as she described the storm's staying power in a series of live reports.
Meteorologist Jim Cantore, the network's most visible personality, said it was unlike anything he'd ever seen or covered. He had to take a brief break from his live reports from New York's Battery Park City to move his belongings because his hotel had been evacuated; his publicist's apartment was also in the evacuation zone.
Bryan Norcross, the network's senior hurricane specialist, explained in an interview that the network tries to keep its tone serious yet urgent. The network's computer models have been consistent in their forecasts of the storm and it has been acting as anticipated, perhaps with even more strength.
'Our goal has been to get people to appreciate the magnitude of the storm and try to prove to them that, based on everything we know, that this is going to be a system that is outside of their experience,' Norcross said.
The Weather Channel sent a message via Twitter calling it 'an extraordinary storm, an extremely serious threat' and urged followers to re-tweet it. The storm 'will occupy a place in the annals of weather history as one of the most extraordinary to have affected the United States,' the network tweeted.
Quickly, the Business Insider tweeted: 'WHOA. The Weather Channel meteorologist just completely freaked out.'
Twitter filled with messages of concern for people in its path, as well as a few oddities. Comic Ricky Gervais made an unprintable suggestion as a joke, while media mogul Rupert Murdoch tweeted: 'Eerie feeling, but kids getting ready to celebrate no school.'
ABC News posted a blog of storm-related news, while another Twitter message contained links to live webcams where computer users could track the storm's progress.
Cosmopolitan magazine tweeted advice for 'how to cut your bangs at home (because if you're going to be house-bound for Sandy, why not?).' ''Sesame Street' offered a hurricane toolkit to help children understand what's going on.
Judging by The Weather Channel, there were also people who saw a business opportunity. There were frequent commercials from companies that make generators for people to keep electricity going in their homes if the power lines go down.
Partly to underline the seriousness of the situation, The Weather Channel has refrained from using the 'Frankenstorm' nickname coined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration last week when the storm was a model on its computer forecasts.
'Being cute about this storm is not the right idea,' Norcross said.
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The network is planning to live-stream its television coverage online so people in the eastern United States who lose power can keep up with the news on their mobile devices. The storm is expected to affect some 50 million people.
'We want you to know we are not hyping this storm, OK?' on-air meteorologist Vivian Brown said. 'We don't do that at The Weather Channel because we want you to be alert and aware.'
Other television networks mixed news of Hurricane Sandy with stories like the presidential campaign. In New York, the local CBS outlet ran a split screen with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie delivering a storm briefing Sunday afternoon and the New York Jets' game against the Miami Dolphins.
But Hurricane Sandy, which is mixing with other weather systems to create a storm of unprecedented strength in the region, kept the undivided attention of The Weather Channel.
The network's Julie Martin, stationed on a beach in Nags Head, N.C., looked increasingly weary of the wind and rain as she described the storm's staying power in a series of live reports.
Meteorologist Jim Cantore, the network's most visible personality, said it was unlike anything he'd ever seen or covered. He had to take a brief break from his live reports from New York's Battery Park City to move his belongings because his hotel had been evacuated; his publicist's apartment was also in the evacuation zone.
Bryan Norcross, the network's senior hurricane specialist, explained in an interview that the network tries to keep its tone serious yet urgent. The network's computer models have been consistent in their forecasts of the storm and it has been acting as anticipated, perhaps with even more strength.
'Our goal has been to get people to appreciate the magnitude of the storm and try to prove to them that, based on everything we know, that this is going to be a system that is outside of their experience,' Norcross said.
The Weather Channel sent a message via Twitter calling it 'an extraordinary storm, an extremely serious threat' and urged followers to re-tweet it. The storm 'will occupy a place in the annals of weather history as one of the most extraordinary to have affected the United States,' the network tweeted.
Quickly, the Business Insider tweeted: 'WHOA. The Weather Channel meteorologist just completely freaked out.'
Twitter filled with messages of concern for people in its path, as well as a few oddities. Comic Ricky Gervais made an unprintable suggestion as a joke, while media mogul Rupert Murdoch tweeted: 'Eerie feeling, but kids getting ready to celebrate no school.'
ABC News posted a blog of storm-related news, while another Twitter message contained links to live webcams where computer users could track the storm's progress.
Cosmopolitan magazine tweeted advice for 'how to cut your bangs at home (because if you're going to be house-bound for Sandy, why not?).' ''Sesame Street' offered a hurricane toolkit to help children understand what's going on.
Judging by The Weather Channel, there were also people who saw a business opportunity. There were frequent commercials from companies that make generators for people to keep electricity going in their homes if the power lines go down.
Partly to underline the seriousness of the situation, The Weather Channel has refrained from using the 'Frankenstorm' nickname coined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration last week when the storm was a model on its computer forecasts.
'Being cute about this storm is not the right idea,' Norcross said.
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Saturday, October 27, 2012
AP PHOTOS: Images of the East Coast superstorm
Hurricane Sandy is kicking up big waves along South Carolina as it heads north, where forecasters say it will likely hit two winter weather systems, creating a hybrid monster storm.
Residents in the storm's path are boarding windows and stocking up on supplies before Sandy's predicted landfall early Tuesday near the Delaware coast.
Here's a look at AP photos of the storm and preparations so far in the U.S.:
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Residents in the storm's path are boarding windows and stocking up on supplies before Sandy's predicted landfall early Tuesday near the Delaware coast.
Here's a look at AP photos of the storm and preparations so far in the U.S.:
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Obama, Romney campaign with eye on storm forecast
WASHINGTON (AP) - With an eye on the weather forecast, President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney are launching a 10-day sprint to the finish line in a contest increasingly about momentum vs. math.
A huge storm barreling toward the East Coast - and some battleground states - had both campaigns adjusting their travel schedules and canceling events. Even at this critical juncture of the campaign, neither side wanted to risk the appearance of putting politics ahead of public safety.
The president was pressing on with a campaign trip Saturday to New Hampshire, while Romney was blitzing through Florida.
But an email announcing that Vice President Joe Biden's Saturday rally in coastal Virginia Beach, Va., stated that the change was 'being taken out of an abundance of caution to ensure that all local law enforcement and emergency management resources can stay focused on ensuring the safety of people who might be impacted by the storm.'
Romney canceled a rally in Virginia Beach that was planned for Sunday, and aides said they were also considering scrapping two other events elsewhere in the state. None of Obama's campaign stops had been canceled, but he did adjust his travel schedule slightly. The campaign moved up his planned Monday departure for Florida to Sunday night to beat the storm.
Ten days from Election Day, Obama and Romney are tied nationally. But the president still appears to have more pathways to reaching the required 270 Electoral College votes.
The Obama campaign released a new TV ad Saturday urging Americans when they go into the voting booth to consider Romney's plans to roll back Wall Street reforms, transform Medicare into a voucher-like system and reduce spending on education while at the same time cutting taxes for the rich. The spot will air in Florida, Iowa, Ohio and Virginia, all key battleground states.
The Republican nominee is trying to seize the momentum mantle and turn a wave of GOP enthusiasm into an electoral victory.
'The debates have supercharged our campaign and the Republican team,' Romney's campaign wrote in a fundraising email. 'We're seeing more and more enthusiasm - and more and more support.'
Obama's campaign pressed forward with a get-out-the-vote effort that aides said had them leading or tied in every competitive state. The president was eschewing the lofty rhetoric of his 2008 run in favor of warning supporters that skipping out on voting could cost him the election.
'In 2000, Gore vs. Bush, 537 votes changed the direction of history in a profound way and the same thing could happen,' Obama said in an interview Friday with MTV.
Romney was switching his attention to Florida on Saturday after spending much of the week focused on shoring up support in Ohio. While the Midwestern swing state could be crucial to Romney's re-election prospects, he also faces tremendous pressure to carry Florida, which offers 29 Electoral College votes, the most of any swing state.
Obama carried Florida by just 3 percentage points in 2008 and polls show the candidates tied.
The former Massachusetts governor was scheduled to attend three rallies, the first in Pensacola along the state's conservative Panhandle. He then moves to suburban Orlando before finishing his day with an evening rally just outside of Tampa, the site of the Republican National Convention. Romney was to be joined at all three events by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
___
Associated Press writer Steve Peoples in North Canton, Ohio, contributed to this report.
___
Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
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A huge storm barreling toward the East Coast - and some battleground states - had both campaigns adjusting their travel schedules and canceling events. Even at this critical juncture of the campaign, neither side wanted to risk the appearance of putting politics ahead of public safety.
The president was pressing on with a campaign trip Saturday to New Hampshire, while Romney was blitzing through Florida.
But an email announcing that Vice President Joe Biden's Saturday rally in coastal Virginia Beach, Va., stated that the change was 'being taken out of an abundance of caution to ensure that all local law enforcement and emergency management resources can stay focused on ensuring the safety of people who might be impacted by the storm.'
Romney canceled a rally in Virginia Beach that was planned for Sunday, and aides said they were also considering scrapping two other events elsewhere in the state. None of Obama's campaign stops had been canceled, but he did adjust his travel schedule slightly. The campaign moved up his planned Monday departure for Florida to Sunday night to beat the storm.
Ten days from Election Day, Obama and Romney are tied nationally. But the president still appears to have more pathways to reaching the required 270 Electoral College votes.
The Obama campaign released a new TV ad Saturday urging Americans when they go into the voting booth to consider Romney's plans to roll back Wall Street reforms, transform Medicare into a voucher-like system and reduce spending on education while at the same time cutting taxes for the rich. The spot will air in Florida, Iowa, Ohio and Virginia, all key battleground states.
The Republican nominee is trying to seize the momentum mantle and turn a wave of GOP enthusiasm into an electoral victory.
'The debates have supercharged our campaign and the Republican team,' Romney's campaign wrote in a fundraising email. 'We're seeing more and more enthusiasm - and more and more support.'
Obama's campaign pressed forward with a get-out-the-vote effort that aides said had them leading or tied in every competitive state. The president was eschewing the lofty rhetoric of his 2008 run in favor of warning supporters that skipping out on voting could cost him the election.
'In 2000, Gore vs. Bush, 537 votes changed the direction of history in a profound way and the same thing could happen,' Obama said in an interview Friday with MTV.
Romney was switching his attention to Florida on Saturday after spending much of the week focused on shoring up support in Ohio. While the Midwestern swing state could be crucial to Romney's re-election prospects, he also faces tremendous pressure to carry Florida, which offers 29 Electoral College votes, the most of any swing state.
Obama carried Florida by just 3 percentage points in 2008 and polls show the candidates tied.
The former Massachusetts governor was scheduled to attend three rallies, the first in Pensacola along the state's conservative Panhandle. He then moves to suburban Orlando before finishing his day with an evening rally just outside of Tampa, the site of the Republican National Convention. Romney was to be joined at all three events by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
___
Associated Press writer Steve Peoples in North Canton, Ohio, contributed to this report.
___
Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
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Sandy downgraded from hurricane to tropical storm
BLOOMSBURG, Pa. (AP) - The National Weather Service has downgraded Sandy from a hurricane to a tropical storm but warns that 'widespread impacts' are still expected into next week for the U.S. East Coast.
The storm was expected to increase in speed and move away from the Bahamas and parallel to the southeast coast of the United States later this weekend.
Maximum sustained winds dropped to near 70 mph early Saturday, pushing it below the threshold for being classified as a hurricane. However, the weather service said it was possible that the storm could regain strength by Sunday night.
Sandy killed more than 40 people in the Caribbean, wrecked homes and knocked down trees and power lines.
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The storm was expected to increase in speed and move away from the Bahamas and parallel to the southeast coast of the United States later this weekend.
Maximum sustained winds dropped to near 70 mph early Saturday, pushing it below the threshold for being classified as a hurricane. However, the weather service said it was possible that the storm could regain strength by Sunday night.
Sandy killed more than 40 people in the Caribbean, wrecked homes and knocked down trees and power lines.
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Friday, October 26, 2012
Sandy leaves Bahamas after killing 43 in Caribbean
NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) - Hurricane Sandy spun away from the Bahamas late Friday after causing 43 deaths across the Caribbean, churning northward toward the U.S. East Coast, where it threatens to join with winter weather fronts to create a super storm.
The Category 1 hurricane toppled light posts, flooded roads and tore off tree branches as it spun through Cat Island and Eleuthera in the scattered Bahamas archipelago, with authorities reporting one man killed, the British CEO of an investment bank.
The death toll rose again in impoverished Haiti, reaching 29 late Friday as word of disasters reached officials and rain continued to fall.
Joseph Edgard Celestin, a spokesman for Haiti's civil protection office, said some people died trying to cross rivers swollen by rains from Sandy's outer reaches. While the storm's center missed the country as it passed by Wednesday, Haiti's ramshackle housing and denuded hillsides make it especially vulnerable to flooding.
Officials at a morgue in the western town of Grand Goave said a mudslide crashed through a wooden home Thursday, killing 40-year-old Jacqueline Tatille and her four children, ranging in ages from 5 to 17.
'If the rain continues, for sure we'll have more people die,' said deputy Joseph Franck Laporte. 'The earth cannot hold the rain.'
Officials reported flooding across Haiti, where 370,000 people are still living in flimsy shelters as a result of the devastating 2010 earthquake. Nearly 17,800 people had to move to 131 temporary shelters, the Civil Protection Office said.
Sandy was a Category 2 hurricane when it wreaked havoc in Cuba on Thursday, killing 11 people in eastern Santiago and Guantanamo provinces as its howling winds and rain destroyed thousands of houses and ripped off roofs. Authorities said it was Cuba's deadliest storm since July 2005, when category 5 Hurricane Dennis killed 16 people and caused $2.4 billion in damage.
Cuban authorities said the island's 11 dead included a 4-month-old boy who was crushed when his home collapsed and an 84-year-old man in Santiago province. Near the city of Guantanamo, two men were killed by falling trees, the Communist Party newspaper Granma reported.
Official news media reported Friday that the storm caused 5,000 houses to at least partially collapse while ripping the roofs off 30,000 others. Banana, coffee, bean and sugar crops were damaged.
Sandy also killed a man in Jamaica on Wednesday when a boulder crashed through his house, and police in the Bahamas said a 66-year-old man died after falling from his roof in upscale Lyford Cay late Thursday while trying to repair a window shutter. Officials at Deltec Bank & Trust identified him as Timothy Fraser-Smith, who became CEO in 2000.
One death was reported in Puerto Rico. Police said a man in his 50s was swept away Friday by a swollen river in the southern town of Juana Diaz, where rain from Sandy's outer bands has been steadily falling.
Late Friday, Sandy was about 90 miles (145 kilometers) north of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas and 395 miles (635 kilometers) south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina. It was just above the threshold for being a hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph), and was moving north at 7 mph (11 kph).
With the storm projected to hit the U.S. Atlantic Coast early Tuesday, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned it could merge with two other systems to become a hybrid, monster storm.
Government officials in the Bahamas said the storm seemed to have inflicted the greatest damage on Cat Island, which took a direct hit, and Exuma, where there were reports of downed trees, power lines and damage to homes.
'I hope that's it for the year,' said Veronica Marshall, a 73-year-old hotel owner in Great Exuma. 'I thought we would be going into the night, but around 3 o'clock it all died down. I was very happy about that.'
On Long Island, farmers lost most of their crops and several roofs were torn off, legislator Loretta Butler-Turner said. The island was without power and many residents did not have access to fresh water, she said.
Power also was out on Acklins Island and most roads there were flooded, while the lone school on Ragged Island in the southern Bahamas was flooded.
Russell, the emergency management official in Nassau, said docks on the western side of Great Inagua island had been destroyed and the roof of a government building was partially ripped off.
Jennifer Savoie, a New Orleans native who lives in Eleuthera, said her fiance's resort, The Cove Eleuthera, was spared major damage but that power is out across most of the island.
'We know the protocol and how to prepare,' she said. 'It's in our blood. We were hit pretty hard though.'
___
Associated Press writers Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Trenton Daniel in Port-au-Prince and Pierre-Richard Luxama in Grand Goave, Haiti; Seth Borenstein in Washington; and Anne-Marie Garcia in Havana contributed to this report.
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The Category 1 hurricane toppled light posts, flooded roads and tore off tree branches as it spun through Cat Island and Eleuthera in the scattered Bahamas archipelago, with authorities reporting one man killed, the British CEO of an investment bank.
The death toll rose again in impoverished Haiti, reaching 29 late Friday as word of disasters reached officials and rain continued to fall.
Joseph Edgard Celestin, a spokesman for Haiti's civil protection office, said some people died trying to cross rivers swollen by rains from Sandy's outer reaches. While the storm's center missed the country as it passed by Wednesday, Haiti's ramshackle housing and denuded hillsides make it especially vulnerable to flooding.
Officials at a morgue in the western town of Grand Goave said a mudslide crashed through a wooden home Thursday, killing 40-year-old Jacqueline Tatille and her four children, ranging in ages from 5 to 17.
'If the rain continues, for sure we'll have more people die,' said deputy Joseph Franck Laporte. 'The earth cannot hold the rain.'
Officials reported flooding across Haiti, where 370,000 people are still living in flimsy shelters as a result of the devastating 2010 earthquake. Nearly 17,800 people had to move to 131 temporary shelters, the Civil Protection Office said.
Sandy was a Category 2 hurricane when it wreaked havoc in Cuba on Thursday, killing 11 people in eastern Santiago and Guantanamo provinces as its howling winds and rain destroyed thousands of houses and ripped off roofs. Authorities said it was Cuba's deadliest storm since July 2005, when category 5 Hurricane Dennis killed 16 people and caused $2.4 billion in damage.
Cuban authorities said the island's 11 dead included a 4-month-old boy who was crushed when his home collapsed and an 84-year-old man in Santiago province. Near the city of Guantanamo, two men were killed by falling trees, the Communist Party newspaper Granma reported.
Official news media reported Friday that the storm caused 5,000 houses to at least partially collapse while ripping the roofs off 30,000 others. Banana, coffee, bean and sugar crops were damaged.
Sandy also killed a man in Jamaica on Wednesday when a boulder crashed through his house, and police in the Bahamas said a 66-year-old man died after falling from his roof in upscale Lyford Cay late Thursday while trying to repair a window shutter. Officials at Deltec Bank & Trust identified him as Timothy Fraser-Smith, who became CEO in 2000.
One death was reported in Puerto Rico. Police said a man in his 50s was swept away Friday by a swollen river in the southern town of Juana Diaz, where rain from Sandy's outer bands has been steadily falling.
Late Friday, Sandy was about 90 miles (145 kilometers) north of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas and 395 miles (635 kilometers) south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina. It was just above the threshold for being a hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph), and was moving north at 7 mph (11 kph).
With the storm projected to hit the U.S. Atlantic Coast early Tuesday, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned it could merge with two other systems to become a hybrid, monster storm.
Government officials in the Bahamas said the storm seemed to have inflicted the greatest damage on Cat Island, which took a direct hit, and Exuma, where there were reports of downed trees, power lines and damage to homes.
'I hope that's it for the year,' said Veronica Marshall, a 73-year-old hotel owner in Great Exuma. 'I thought we would be going into the night, but around 3 o'clock it all died down. I was very happy about that.'
On Long Island, farmers lost most of their crops and several roofs were torn off, legislator Loretta Butler-Turner said. The island was without power and many residents did not have access to fresh water, she said.
Power also was out on Acklins Island and most roads there were flooded, while the lone school on Ragged Island in the southern Bahamas was flooded.
Russell, the emergency management official in Nassau, said docks on the western side of Great Inagua island had been destroyed and the roof of a government building was partially ripped off.
Jennifer Savoie, a New Orleans native who lives in Eleuthera, said her fiance's resort, The Cove Eleuthera, was spared major damage but that power is out across most of the island.
'We know the protocol and how to prepare,' she said. 'It's in our blood. We were hit pretty hard though.'
___
Associated Press writers Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Trenton Daniel in Port-au-Prince and Pierre-Richard Luxama in Grand Goave, Haiti; Seth Borenstein in Washington; and Anne-Marie Garcia in Havana contributed to this report.
This news article is brought to you by GOING GREEN NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Sandy leaves Bahamas after killing 40 in Caribbean
NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) - Hurricane Sandy rolled out of the Bahamas on Friday after causing 40 deaths across the Caribbean, churning toward the U.S. East Coast, where it threatens to join forces with winter weather fronts to create a devastating super storm.
The Category 1 hurricane toppled light posts, flooded roads and tore off tree branches as it spun through Cat Island and Eleuthera in the scattered Bahamas archipelago, with authorities reporting one man killed, the British CEO of an investment bank.
The death toll was still rising in impoverished Haiti, reaching 26 on Friday as word of disasters reached officials and rain continued to fall.
Joseph Edgard Celestin, a spokesman for Haiti's civil protection office, said some people died trying to cross rivers swollen by rains from Sandy's outer reaches. While the storm's center missed the country as it passed by Wednesday, Haiti's ramshackle housing and denuded hillsides make it especially vulnerable to flooding.
Officials at a morgue in the western town of Grand Goave said a mudslide crashed through a wooden home Thursday, killing 40-year-old Jacqueline Tatille and her four children, ranging in ages from 5 to 17.
'If the rain continues, for sure we'll have more people die,' said morgue deputy Joseph Franck Laporte. 'The earth cannot hold the rain.'
Officials reported flooding across Haiti, where 370,000 people are still living in flimsy shelters as a result of the devastating 2010 earthquake. Nearly 17,800 people had to move to 131 temporary shelters, the Civil Protection Office said.
Sandy was a Category 2 hurricane when it wreaked havoc in Cuba on Thursday, killing 11 people in eastern Santiago and Guantanamo provinces as its howling winds and rain destroyed thousands of houses and ripped off roofs. Authorities said it was Cuba's deadliest storm since July 2005, when category 5 Hurricane Dennis killed 16 people and caused $2.4 billion in damage.
Cuban authorities said the island's 11 dead included a 4-month-old boy who was crushed when his home collapsed and an 84-year-old man in Santiago province. Near the city of Guantanamo, two men were killed by falling trees, the Communist Party newspaper Granma reported.
Official news media reported Friday that the storm caused 5,000 houses to at least partially collapse while ripping the roofs off 30,000 others. Banana, coffee, bean and sugar crops were damaged.
Sandy also killed a man in Jamaica on Wednesday when a boulder crashed through his house, and police in the Bahamas said a 66-year-old man died after falling from his roof in upscale Lyford Cay late Thursday while trying to repair a window shutter. Officials at Deltec Bank & Trust identified him as Timothy Fraser-Smith, who became CEO in 2000.
One death was reported in Puerto Rico. Police said a man in his 50s was swept away Friday by a swollen river in the southern town of Juana Diaz, where rain from Sandy's outer bands has been steadily falling.
Late Friday afternoon, Sandy was about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas and 420 miles (670 kilometers) south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina. It was barely still a hurricane, with maximum sustained winds near 75 mph (120 kph) and was moving north at 7 mph (11 kph).
With the storm projected to hit the U.S. Atlantic Coast early Tuesday, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned it could merge with two other systems to become a hybrid, monster storm.
Government officials in the Bahamas said the storm seemed to have inflicted the greatest damage on Cat Island, which took a direct hit, and Exuma, where there were reports of downed trees, power lines and damage to homes.
'I hope that's it for the year,' said Veronica Marshall, a 73-year-old hotel owner in Great Exuma. 'I thought we would be going into the night, but around 3 o'clock it all died down. I was very happy about that.'
On Long Island, farmers lost most of their crops and several roofs were torn off, legislator Loretta Butler-Turner said. The island was without power and many residents did not have access to fresh water, she said.
Power also was out on Acklins Island and most roads there were flooded, while the lone school on Ragged Island in the southern Bahamas was flooded.
Russell, the emergency management official in Nassau, said docks on the western side of Great Inagua island had been destroyed and the roof of a government building was partially ripped off.
Jennifer Savoie, a New Orleans native who lives in Eleuthera, said her fiance's resort, The Cove Eleuthera, was spared major damage but that power is out across most of the island.
'We know the protocol and how to prepare,' she said. 'It's in our blood. We were hit pretty hard though.'
___
Associated Press writers Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Trenton Daniel in Port-au-Prince and Pierre-Richard Luxama in Grand Goave, Haiti; Seth Borenstein in Washington; and Anne-Marie Garcia in Havana contributed to this report.
This news article is brought to you by GADGETS NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
The Category 1 hurricane toppled light posts, flooded roads and tore off tree branches as it spun through Cat Island and Eleuthera in the scattered Bahamas archipelago, with authorities reporting one man killed, the British CEO of an investment bank.
The death toll was still rising in impoverished Haiti, reaching 26 on Friday as word of disasters reached officials and rain continued to fall.
Joseph Edgard Celestin, a spokesman for Haiti's civil protection office, said some people died trying to cross rivers swollen by rains from Sandy's outer reaches. While the storm's center missed the country as it passed by Wednesday, Haiti's ramshackle housing and denuded hillsides make it especially vulnerable to flooding.
Officials at a morgue in the western town of Grand Goave said a mudslide crashed through a wooden home Thursday, killing 40-year-old Jacqueline Tatille and her four children, ranging in ages from 5 to 17.
'If the rain continues, for sure we'll have more people die,' said morgue deputy Joseph Franck Laporte. 'The earth cannot hold the rain.'
Officials reported flooding across Haiti, where 370,000 people are still living in flimsy shelters as a result of the devastating 2010 earthquake. Nearly 17,800 people had to move to 131 temporary shelters, the Civil Protection Office said.
Sandy was a Category 2 hurricane when it wreaked havoc in Cuba on Thursday, killing 11 people in eastern Santiago and Guantanamo provinces as its howling winds and rain destroyed thousands of houses and ripped off roofs. Authorities said it was Cuba's deadliest storm since July 2005, when category 5 Hurricane Dennis killed 16 people and caused $2.4 billion in damage.
Cuban authorities said the island's 11 dead included a 4-month-old boy who was crushed when his home collapsed and an 84-year-old man in Santiago province. Near the city of Guantanamo, two men were killed by falling trees, the Communist Party newspaper Granma reported.
Official news media reported Friday that the storm caused 5,000 houses to at least partially collapse while ripping the roofs off 30,000 others. Banana, coffee, bean and sugar crops were damaged.
Sandy also killed a man in Jamaica on Wednesday when a boulder crashed through his house, and police in the Bahamas said a 66-year-old man died after falling from his roof in upscale Lyford Cay late Thursday while trying to repair a window shutter. Officials at Deltec Bank & Trust identified him as Timothy Fraser-Smith, who became CEO in 2000.
One death was reported in Puerto Rico. Police said a man in his 50s was swept away Friday by a swollen river in the southern town of Juana Diaz, where rain from Sandy's outer bands has been steadily falling.
Late Friday afternoon, Sandy was about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas and 420 miles (670 kilometers) south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina. It was barely still a hurricane, with maximum sustained winds near 75 mph (120 kph) and was moving north at 7 mph (11 kph).
With the storm projected to hit the U.S. Atlantic Coast early Tuesday, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned it could merge with two other systems to become a hybrid, monster storm.
Government officials in the Bahamas said the storm seemed to have inflicted the greatest damage on Cat Island, which took a direct hit, and Exuma, where there were reports of downed trees, power lines and damage to homes.
'I hope that's it for the year,' said Veronica Marshall, a 73-year-old hotel owner in Great Exuma. 'I thought we would be going into the night, but around 3 o'clock it all died down. I was very happy about that.'
On Long Island, farmers lost most of their crops and several roofs were torn off, legislator Loretta Butler-Turner said. The island was without power and many residents did not have access to fresh water, she said.
Power also was out on Acklins Island and most roads there were flooded, while the lone school on Ragged Island in the southern Bahamas was flooded.
Russell, the emergency management official in Nassau, said docks on the western side of Great Inagua island had been destroyed and the roof of a government building was partially ripped off.
Jennifer Savoie, a New Orleans native who lives in Eleuthera, said her fiance's resort, The Cove Eleuthera, was spared major damage but that power is out across most of the island.
'We know the protocol and how to prepare,' she said. 'It's in our blood. We were hit pretty hard though.'
___
Associated Press writers Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Trenton Daniel in Port-au-Prince and Pierre-Richard Luxama in Grand Goave, Haiti; Seth Borenstein in Washington; and Anne-Marie Garcia in Havana contributed to this report.
This news article is brought to you by GADGETS NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
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