Sandy Strengthens as Hurricane Barrels Toward New Jersey

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[font size="1"]Waters from Hurricane Sandy start to flood Beach Ave. on October 29, 2012 in Cape May, New Jersey. Photographer: Mark Wilson/Getty Images[/font]


(Bloomberg) Hurricane Sandy, the Atlantic’s largest-ever tropical storm, will strike the East Coast today or early tomorrow with a life-threatening surge, emptying the streets of the nation’s largest cities and lashing a region of 60 million with gales, rain and even snow.

The storm, 900 miles across, shut the federal government and state administrations from Virginia to Massachusetts. It halted travel, prevented U.S. stock markets from opening and upended the presidential campaign. It may cause more than $6 billion in damage and knock out power to 10 million for a week.

“We have to take this seriously,” PresidentBarack Obama said of what he called “a serious and big storm.”

Sandy packed maximum sustained winds of 90 miles (145 kilometers) per hour, up from 75 mph earlier, the National Hurricane Center said at 11 a.m. New York time. The storm’s eye was about 260 miles south-southeast of New York. It is not expected to weaken before striking at Cape May, New Jersey, the center said. It may bring a surge of nearly 12 feet (3.7 meters) in Manhattan, said Howard Glaser, New York’s director of state operations. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-29/sandy-strengthens-as-hurricane-barrels-toward-new-jersey.html