Sandy picks up pace, slams US coast

Hurricane Sandy, one of the biggest storms ever to hit the US, slammed into the east coast last night to become what some analysts called “the north-east’s Katrina”.

It lashed the densely populated region, shutting down transportation, forcing evacuations in flood-prone areas, and interrupting the presidential campaign.

Fierce winds and flooding racked hundreds of miles of Atlantic coastline and heavy snows were forecast farther inland at higher elevations as the centre of the storm moved ashore along the coast of New Jersey and Delaware last night.

US stock markets were closed for the first time since the attacks of Sept 11, 2001, and will remain shut today. The federal government in Washington was closed and schools were shut up and down the east coast.

The storm’s target area included New York City, Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.

US officials pleaded with the public to stay at home, saying the time to evacuate was over. About 400,000 people had been ordered to evacuate over the weekend.

More than 1m customers were without electricity by early evening.

One disaster forecasting company predicted economic losses could reach $20bn, (€15.5bn) only half of it insured.

In Washington, President Barack Obama appealed to the tens of millions of people in the hurricane’s path to follow directions given to them by officials.

“If the public’s not following instructions, that makes it more dangerous for people, and it means that we could have fatalities that could have been avoided,” Obama said at the White House, adding that people should expect long power outages and stagnated transportation systems.

New York City evacuated neighbours of a 90-storey super luxury apartment block under construction after its crane partially collapsed in high winds, prompting fears the entire rig could crash to the ground.

New York and other cities closed their transit systems and schools, ordering mass evacuations from low-lying areas ahead of a storm surge that could reach as high as 11ft or 15ft.

Sandy was moving quickly toward New Jersey and Delaware. It made landfall at about 10.30pm Irish time.

The hurricane picked up speed as it raced northwest toward the US coast at 28 miles per hour (45km/h), with top sustained winds at 90mph, the National Hurricane Center said. Forecasters said Sandy was a rare hybrid “super storm” created by an Arctic jet stream wrapping itself around a tropical storm.

The combination of those two storms would have been bad enough, but meteorologists said there was a third storm at play — a system coming down from Canada that would trap the hurricane combo nicknamed Frankenstorm and hold it in place.

Moreover, the storm was coming ashore at high tide, which was pulled even higher by a full moon.

While Sandy does not have the intensity of Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, it has been gathering strength. It killed 66 people in the Caribbean last week before pounding US coastal areas as it moved north. An Accu- Weather meteorologist said Sandy was “unfolding as the north-east’s Katrina”.

Forecasters said Sandy could be the largest storm to hit the mainland in US history.

Off North Carolina, the US coastguard rescued 15 of the 16 crew members who abandoned the replica tall ship HMS Bounty, using helicopters to lift them from life rafts. The coastguard continued to search for the captain.

Meanwhile, the US army’s 3rd infantry regiment is continuing to stand guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The memorial at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, for those who died and were unidentified during war, is considered a sacred site for both those in uniform and those opposed to war.