Hurricane Sandy

[desertpunk]

Sandy is coming. Landfall expected in South New Jersey.






NYC Evacuation zones:

Storm surge may be 6-11 ft in Zone A. Shelters are open.


McBrooklyn

The areas above shaded aqua blue (cyan) above have a 10 percent chance of exceeding 7 - 9 feet of storm surge. The dark green areas have a 10 percent chance of exceeding 9 - 11 feet of surge. Dark grey: 5 - 7 feet; light blue: 3 - 5 feet; dark blue: 2 - 3 feet.






Manhattan shelters:



Brooklyn shelters:



.

[desertpunk]

Bloomberg On FRANKENSTORM: Monday Night Storm Surge Could Be Record

Update: Wearing one of his classic calm-inducing sweaters, Bloomberg did his best to assuage fears about what will happen over the next few days as FRANKENSTORM bares down on the East Coast. "What our expectation is during the day tomorrow: it'll be windy, maybe a little bit of rain, not much during the day," he said. "The storm would start getting worse Sunday evening and go into Monday. Don't get lulled tomorrow when there's not a lot of rain and not a lot of wind. This is a dangerous storm and I think we're going to be okay, but if it were to strengthen unexpectedly or stray from its expected path, you could be at a lot of risk."

For now, Bloomberg is not ordering any evacuations for any parts of the city, though he tempered that by saying: "Even though we are not ordering evacuations, conditions will be dangerous during the storm. The safest thing to do is stay inside." He said that the biggest worry was Monday evening: "The biggest unknown here is the storm surge, which on Monday night could be a record." He gave some grandfatherly advice about how you can start to prepare: "There will be a lot of wind, no matter what happens. It would make some sense tonight to take a few big pots and fill them with water and put them on the side."

They haven't decided yet whether to close the schools on Monday (they'll decide tomorrow), but all events in city parks after 2 p.m. Sunday have been cancelled, and all parks will be closed by 5 p.m. tomorrow. All city offices will be open Monday as of now, and city employees are expected to show up at work; sanitation pickup will also proceed as normal Monday as of now. "If you put out your trash, try to make sure it's not going to get blown around," he said, advising, "Put some weights on them so they don't get blown around."

He also made a point of warning surfers from being seduced by the "attractive" conditions:

"Let me say something again and again and again. The beaches are dangerous and surfing is extremely dangerous. You may want to run the risk, but if we have to send our emergency workers in to save you, their lives are at risk. This is just much too dangerous a storm, and for a small amount of pleasure your life might be in danger but the emergency workers' lives will certainly be in danger."

Sixty-five shelters around the city will be open as of 9 a.m. tomorrow (you can call 311 or check NYC.gov for their locations). Bloomberg said that the decision whether to shut down the MTA would be made Sunday afternoon, and the city would support whatever they decided. As for power outages, Con Ed CEO Kevin Burke told people to watch out for downed wires. "We anticipate that the damage and storm surge from Hurricane Sandy will be worse than Hurricane Irene," he said.

Bloomberg added that there will be another briefing on the storm Sunday afternoon, probably around 6 p.m. he summed everything up so: "Monday is the big day. Storm surge Monday night is the big one we're worried about. By Tuesday mid-day, weather should start to improve."

[desertpunk]

Cuomo: MTA Will Probably Shut Down At 7 pm Sunday

image hosted on flickr

View of the A train tracks from JFK airport by ADivs, on Flickr

Well, this was kind of inevitable, wasn't it: with FRANKENSTORM looming around the corner, the MTA has already cancelled almost all subway and rail work, as well as put together an “orderly shutdown” preparation plan. Gov. Andrew Cuomo now says that if a shutdown happens, it'll begin at 7 p.m. Sunday night. “I have directed the MTA to put its Hurricane Plan into action to help New Yorkers prepare for the storm and protect the vital assets of the region’s transportation system,” Cuomo said. “New Yorkers need to take action now to protect themselves, and as the transportation system prepares to possibly suspend service, no one should wait until the last minute to prepare.”

Cuomo stressed that no final decisions would be made before Sunday—but judging by the response to Irene last year, and Bloomberg's comments yesterday ("if we have to make a mistake, we'd rather make a mistake in being cautious"), a system-wide shutdown is seeming increasingly likely. That hurricane plan calls for the shutdown of the transit system in advance of any storm with sustained winds of at least 39 MPH; if winds exceed 60 MPH, some bridges could be closed too. Right now, Hurricane Sandy has winds over 75 MPH.

“Suspending the largest transportation system in North America is a monumental effort, and it is imperative that we start the process before we make a final decision, and before the worst of Hurricane Sandy reaches us,” said MTA Chairman and CEO Joseph Lhota. “That means all of our 8.5 million daily customers need to prepare for the storm and be ready to complete their travels by 7 p.m. Sunday.” It's not yet clear how long a possible shutdown would last.

They note that subway service should be normal Sunday up until that time. It takes eight hours to suspend subway service, so some trains may continue to run for several hours after that 7 p.m. deadline, but they stress that there's no guarantee of service. The bus system takes six hours to suspend service, so buses would probably run their normal routes for up to two hours longer. LIRR and Metro-North Railroad would run their final trains at 7 p.m.; Grand Central Terminal and other Metro-North station buildings would be closed at that time as well.

One good change from last year: the TLC said they won't put in place a zoned fare system for taxi passengers. As one official told the Journal, it "caused some confusion" with passengers, which is a very nice way of saying people got thoroughly ripped off thanks to a byzantine system of mysterious zones and cryptic letters.

[desertpunk]

ConEd May Shut Power To Lower Manhattan

image hosted on flickr

CON ED by Mudskipper, on Flickr

Last year, Mayor Bloomberg freaked everyone out when he mentioned that Con Ed might preemptively shut off the power to Lower Manhattan before Hurricane Irene touched down. Well, we don't want you to get too worked up just yet, but it seems history may be repeating itself: we've heard reports that people in the Financial District have started receiving automated calls from Con Ed informing them that power MAY be turned off before the Frankenstorm hits the city.

Here's what Brian Topping had to say:

It was a recorded message stating something to the effect that "Sandy is a very powerful storm and to protect our sensitive equipment in lower Manhattan, Con Ed will be turning off power in areas that are affected by the storm. This is to ensure that we can restore service more quickly after it is done." I looked out the window shortly thereafter and there was a Con Ed truck in exactly the same place there was during Irene, where we lost steam for the hot water for something like two days straight.

A Con Ed spokesman noted that it was too premature to say whether or not that might actually happen. They also explained the rationale for cutting off power in anticipation of a possible storm: "It protects equipment from salt water and makes restoration of power easier. Obviously underground equipment gets rain year round but salt water is especially damaging."

Topping, who is a member of Dorkbot NYC (their motto: "people doing strange things with electricity"), didn't seem entirely convinced by that though:

"As far as the salt water thing, it's an interesting perspective, but not a trump card. The system is *designed* to be shorted, automatically isolating the areas that have the shorted mains. Once the mains and/or transformer rooms are waterlogged with salt water, they can't just turn it back on, they have to dry everything out. It's practically the same amount of work, the only difference is they don't have to reset the breaker. And we know from electrical storms that knock out power temporarily that it doesn't take long to reset a breaker."

On the other hand, if the system never becomes waterlogged at all, they've massively inconvenienced the entire area.

That's more my point. They are inconveniencing thousands of families that live down here for the sake of a few extra people to reset a few more breakers (but still have to do all the work of pumping out the system anyway). And that's only if the system *does* get inundated, which is rather unlikely.


On their website, Con Ed writes that they are "closely monitoring Hurricane Sandy and is preparing for possible damage in the company's service area. Forecasts show that tidal surges associated with this storm on Monday, and especially Tuesday, could be worse than Hurricane Irene's last year." They have more tips there, but if you need to report downed power lines, outages, and check service restoration status you can check here, or call 1-800-75-CONED (1-800-752-6633).

[desertpunk]

Hurricane Sandy on path to hit N.J., latest 'Frankenstorm' forecast shows


Boarding up homes in Cape May

With each passing hour, the Garden State is under an increasing threat of taking a direct hit from a powerful — and perhaps unprecedented — hybrid storm government officials have dubbed a "Frankenstorm."

Hurricane Sandy, which had sustained winds of over 105 mph Thursday night before dropping to 90 mph early Friday morning, is churning north along the southeastern coast and is expected to become a crucial element in a mutating monster of a storm that could bring a nightmarish combination of severe weather to New Jersey from Sunday through Halloween.

Record-setting coastal flooding, major river and road flooding and a prolonged period of winds gusting over hurricane-force strength are all possibilities on the table, forecasters say, though the exact track of the storm continued to confound them tonight.

"This is going to be one where we’re going to be flying by the seat of our pants as meteorologists," said Steven DiMartino, owner of NY NJ PA Weather, part of the Storm Surge LLC group. "It has all the facets of difficulty of forecasting for a hurricane. But it also has all facets of difficulty of forecasting a nor’easter. It’s going to have to be watched by the hour as it evolves."


Atlantic City casinos make preparations. Casinos to close Sunday.

As Sandy moves north through the Western Atlantic Ocean, it is being penned in by several weather disturbances to the north, east and west, slowing its movement and leaving it little place to go but slowly up the coast. As this occurs, a low-pressure system diving southeastward across the United States is expected to begin to interact with Sandy, pulling it toward the coast and transforming it into a hybrid between a tropical system and a nor’easter.

As this transformation occurs, Sandy’s wind and rain fields could expand dramatically as it slowly lurches toward the Mid-Atlantic or New England coast.

Where, exactly, the storm ends up remains murky, but in the last 72 hours forecast models have slowly zeroed in on a major impact for New Jersey.

"The difficulty in the forecast is, as this transition occurs, you’re spreading the storm out over a very large area. You’re talking about millions of millions of people that could be affected," said Henry Margusity, a senior meteorologist at Accuweather. "The exact track of the storm, that’s going to dictate how bad its going to be and for who. But this is a multi-million dollar maybe a billion dollar damage storm that’s shaping up."

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Christie Declares NJ State Of Emergency

NJ Governor Chris Christie called a "state of emergency" today, as the FRANKENSTORM approaches the Northeast. "I am urging all New Jerseyans to take every possible and reasonable precaution to ready themselves for the storm’s potential impact...We should not underestimate the impact of this storm. We have to be prepared for the worst here.” He mentioned that his daughter Bridget asked him this morning, "You're not going to cancel Halloween like you did last year, Dad?" His response was that it was too early to say.

Among other things, Christie called for a mandatory evacuation, starting at 4 p.m. Sunday, for barrier islands, from Sandy Hook South to Cape May, including Atlantic City casinos. He added that residents could be without power for more than a week if the current forecasts are correct. He also noted that he had canceled plans to campaign for Mitt Romney in Nevada on Tuesday: "I am here and I'm going to be here."

In case you're having flashbacks to Hurricane Irene and 2011, it's important to note that Christie did not mention whether residents needed to get the hell off the beach, so we can't say for sure whether you should continue trying to maximize your tan.

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NJ Transit Preparing For Possible Complete System Shutdown

NJ Transit is preparing for the possibility it will have to shut down its bus, rail and light rail systems on Monday to prevent damage to equipment during the storm, Governor Christie’s office announced Saturday evening. If there is a shutdown, it would also include service to Access Link services for the elderly and disabled.

A systemwide shutdown requires 12 hours to complete, according to state officials, and involves the relocation of buses, rail and other equipment to higher ground.

No final decisions have been made regarding a shutdown, the governor’s office emphasized late Saturday.

Should the system remain in operations, tickets will be cross-honored starting at midnight on Monday. That means passengers holding a bus, train or light-rail ticket can use it on any mode of transportation, including the Port Authority’s PATH system or the PATCO high-speed line, and private bus carriers.

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JCP&L Warns Power Outages Could Last 10 Days

Jersey Central Power & Light President Don Lynch today warned that customers could again be out of power up to 10 days if “Frankenstorm” lives up to the company’s worst fears. "Customers could expect to be out of power for 7 to 10 days," Don Lynch said. "We do expect a lot of damage from the winds if they develop and rain and flooding."

But Lynch vowed the utility will perform better than last year when two major storms blasted the state. "Just know that Jersey Central will be working hard day and night, we've already started, should that storm hit shore here and cause outages in our system," Lynch said. He said the seven to 10 day prediction is being made because the company learned it should communicate more with customers. “We understand the challenges and difficulty people have when they are out of power,” Lynch said.

FirstEnergy Corp., JCP&L's parent company said in a press release that more than 700 lineman, hazard crews and internal supports resources and up to 600 electrical contractors are in place to handle storm recovery work. The company also has 1,000 tree contractors available to help.

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Widespread creek and river flooding expected:



Future radar loop as Sandy approaches NJ

[desertpunk]

Bloomberg Orders Mandatory Evacuation Of All NY'ers In Zone A

[Update]: Forgoing a comfort-inducing sweater for a stark grey zip-up, a slightly hoarse Bloomberg called for a mandatory evacuation of all New Yorkers in Zone A. "I've ordered this evacuation for the safety of approximately 375K people who live in these areas. If you life in these areas, you should leave them this afternoon," he said.

Public schools will be closed on Monday as well, and all street cleaning rules and alternate side parking has been suspended. In case you don't remember what you did last year during Hurricane Irene (here's the map of all the zones), Zone A includes Brooklyn's Coney Island and Manhattan Beach, Far Rockaway and Broad Channel in Queens, South Beach, Midland Beach, and other low-lying areas on Staten Island, and Manhattan's Battery Park City.

Bloomberg said Zone A residents who don't evacuate are being "selfish:" "If you don't evacuate, you're not just putting your own life in danger, you're also endangering lives of our first responders...[people who don't evacuate] are not going to get arrested, but they are being, I would argue, very selfish." He added that evacuations should happen by 7 p.m. tonight, when the MTA shuts down.

"Last night we said this was serious and dangerous storm, nothing has changed there," Bloomberg explained. "The surge will be a few feet more than what they predicted yesterday, around 6-11 feet. Gale force winds will start late this afternoon, growing overnight, and the worst of the storm will still be on Monday night. But tides overnight tonight will laad to coastal flooding in Zone A...We anticipate the surge will hit a lot of low lying areas, and the possibility of flooding will continue into Tuesday afternoon."

As for his imploring city workers to come to work on Monday, he said: "We need the city workers. They're here to serve the public, thats' the job they have...We all take great pride in serving the public. it may be inconveniant, but hopefully not dangerous." Bloomberg concluded the presser: "Just go visit somebody who is happy to have you."

[Hudson11]

listen to the wind howl
http://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/...cam=liberty_hd

[Rishab_Paudel]

-Airlines cancelled more than 3,000 flights as a result of Hurricane Sandy. More than 265 flight cancellations at Newark Airport.
-For Monday, 2,499 flights are cancelled, with 774 cancellations at Newark, followed by 428 at Dulles in Washington and 355 cancellations at Philadelphia.
-MTA subway and rail will be suspended as of tonight at 7PM. MTA bus will be suspended tonight at 9 PM.
-NYC Mayor Bloomberg announces mandatory evacuation of 375,000 residents. It also includes Coney Island and other low lying areas.
via live updates on hurricane sandy
http://www.disaster-report.com/2012/...ane-sandy.html

[desertpunk]

http://gothamist.com/2012/10/28/it_b...#disqus_thread

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced this morning that the MTA will completely shut down their entire transportation system—including subway, rail and bus— starting at 7 p.m. tonight, before FRANKENSTORM is due to hit the city. "This is nothing to play with; this is nothing to take lightly," Cuomo said. MTA chief Joe Lhota was realistic about when it might be back: "Monday and Tuesday will be difficult. Service may be restored Wednesday, but perhaps not fully."

The city has been preparing this for the past few days, organizing an “orderly shutdown” preparation plan: “The MTA proved it can suspend service in an orderly manner when it did so last year for Tropical Storm Irene, and we have refined our Hurricane Plan since then to help us prepare for Hurricane Sandy,” said Lhota. “The transportation system is the lifeblood of the New York City region, and suspending all service is not a step I take lightly,” Cuomo said. “But keeping New Yorkers safe is the first priority, and the best way to do that is to make sure they are out of harm’s way before gale-force winds can start wreaking havoc on trains and buses.”

The subway system will start to shut down at 7 p.m. tonight—it takes eight hours to suspend subway service, so some trains may continue to run for several hours after that deadline, but they stress that there's no guarantee of service. The bus system takes six hours to suspend service, so the last buses will run at 9 p.m. LIRR and Metro-North Railroad will run final trains at 7 p.m.; Grand Central Terminal and other Metro-North station buildings will be closed at that time as well.

In a press statement, they warn: "The duration of the service suspension is unknown, and there is no timetable for restoration. Service will be restored only when it is safe to do so, after careful inspections of all equipment and tracks. Even with minimal damage this is expected to be a lengthy process."

[desertpunk]

Panicky FRANKENSTORM Weather Experts Criticize Calm Bloomberg

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg put on one of his most effective calm-inducing sweaters, and did his best to assuage fears about what will happen over the next few days as FRANKENSTORM bares down on the East Coast. But the hybrid hurricane/winter storm is coming together as forecast, according to weather experts, and The Weather Channel's Bryan Norcross thinks Bloomberg downplayed the severity of the storm too much: at his "incomprehensibly inexplicable news conference:" "But to play down the biggest storm to come along in years—if the forecast is even close—seems bizarrely out of character. There's no upside in this everything-is-rosy approach...The normally well-oiled machine that is the Bloomberg administration seems to have slipped a communications cog."

"Sandy the super-unusual, combo hurricane/nor'easter on the unheard-of track is coming together as forecast," Norcorss wrote, referring to computer models of the storm that have been entirely accurate so far. "Those same reliable computer models are saying that Combo Sandy is going to get reinvigorated by the jet stream while still getting energy from the Gulf Stream tomorrow and Monday, and get stronger and bigger. And then pounce on the Northeast." Norcross says that a full moon on Monday night, coinciding with possibly record storm surges, could raise the ocean level 4 to 8 feet above normal.

All of which is to say that while Bloomberg's approach to this storm thus far HAS kept people pretty calm, it has not instilled a sense of the seriousness of the weather phenomenon. And lulling people into a sense of security is not what Norcross thinks people need right now: "The forecast calls for a massive, destructive storm to affect tens of millions of people. If the forecast is wrong, hooray. But so far it's been right, and the odds are this is going to be really bad for a lot of people. Everybody's goal should be to be sure that as many people as possible are as ready and aware as they can be."

Because it's not just Hurricane Sandy hitting us—it's the early winter storm, arctic air from the north, high tides and the chance of snow all combined. "'Frankenstorm' is the right name for Sandy, and indeed for many other storms and droughts and heat waves now," said enviornmentalist Bill McKibben. "They’re stitched together from some spooky combination of the natural and the unnatural. Some state will doubtless bear the brunt of this particular monster, but it also will do its damage to everyone’s state of mind."

It seems important to note this isn't just the opinion of one or two rogue weatherman hellbent on keeping their golf secrets from you: “This is really going to be a huge storm and something unprecedented in meteorological terms,” AccuWeather forecaster Marshall Moss told the Daily News. “This storm will affect millions and cost billions.” “This will be a storm very few people have experienced in their lifetime,” AccuWeather meteorologist Mark Paquette told the Post, adding that the storm will be much more powerful than Irene.

[desertpunk]

Shake Shack closes:

image hosted on flickr

Shake Shack: short line now, closing early tonight. #ZoneA #PSA by organizingthesoup, on Flickr

At Goldman Sachs HQ:

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Sandy. by organizingthesoup, on Flickr

Covering subway grates, Lower Manhattan:

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covering the subway grates by organizingthesoup, on Flickr

Empty shelves in Astoria:

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Key Foods AStoria Water Supply by squirrel83, on Flickr

The last of the fall color before the storm:

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Captivating colors by sterlingraphael, on Flickr

[desertpunk]

Garden State Parkway in NJ

[TampaMike]

Goodbye Coney Island.

[musiccity]

Originally Posted by TampaMike

Goodbye Coney Island.

All of Coney Island is in Zone A and NYC is expected to get the worst storm surge as it's in the NE Quadrant of Sandy.

[desertpunk]

11.7 ft storm surge now predicted for the Battery. Wall St opening Monday but may close early...

[desertpunk]

NYSE suspending operations on Monday.

[chicagogeorge]

The Northeast is screwed

The Weather Service's hi res WRF model is in. What's becoming increasingly evident is the potentially record-breaking nature of this storm on a number of fronts. Here's the fcst panel for 7pm tomorrow evening indicating a barometric pressure at landfall of 950 mb which would be a New Jersey record if the model is accurate.

[desertpunk]

NJ lowering reservoirs ahead of flooding:

[desertpunk]

Atlantic City boardwalk already crumbling...

[germantower]

Isn´t the eye still several hundreds of miles away from Atlantic City?