HATTERAS ISLAND: Weather forecasters worked to pinpoint the likely landfall of the monstrous Hurricane Sandy as it closed in on the US East Coast on Sunday with the potential to be the biggest storm to hit the mainland.
Government officials faced tough decisions on emergency plans as residents scrambled to purchase supplies.
Governors of several states in the hurricane’s path declared emergencies and ordered mandatory evacuations of vulnerable coastal areas.
On its current projected track, Sandy is most likely to make US landfall on Monday night between Delaware and the New York/New Jersey area, forecasters said.
While Sandy’s winds were not overwhelming for a hurricane, its width was what made it exceptional.
The storm’s hurricane force winds extended (165 kms) from its center while its lesser tropical storm-force winds reached across (1,125 kms).
Sandy could have a brutal impact on major cities in the target zone.
In New York, city officials discussed whether to shut the subway system on Sunday in advance of the storm, which could bring the county’s financial nerve center to a standstill.
The storm could cause the worst flooding Connecticut has seen in more than 70 years, said the state’s governor, Dannel P. Malloy. Government forecasters at the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said as the storm approached land it became increasingly pointless to predict the precise landfall.
“It is still too soon to focus on the exact track … both because of forecast uncertainty and because the impacts are going to cover such a large area away from the center,” the NHC said in an advisory.
Sandy was located about (445 km) south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, with top sustained winds of 120 kms per hour early Sunday, the NHC said.
The storm was moving over the Atlantic parallel to the US coast at (22 kph), but was forecast to make a tight westerly turn toward the US coast on Sunday night.
Sandy could be the largest storm to hit the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s website.
“The size of this alone, affecting a heavily populated area, is going to be history making,” said Jeff Masters, a hurricane specialist who writes a blog posted on the Weather Underground (www.wunderground.com).
Sandy could impact the cities of Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, one of the most densely populated regions of the country home to tens of millions of people.
Forecasters said Sandy was a rare, hybrid “super storm” created by an Arctic jet stream wrapping itself around a tropical storm, possibly causing up to (30 cm) of rain in some areas, as well as heavy snowfall inland.
Sandy killed at least 66 people as it made its way through the Caribbean islands, including 51 in Haiti, mostly from flash flooding and mudslides, according to authorities.
Also in the news, Hawaii was bracing itself for a tsunami on Saturday night after an official warning was issued, prompting the evacuation of all low-lying areas in the island state, after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Canada’s British Columbia late on Saturday.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued the alert, saying the first tsunami wave could strike the islands at 10:28 p.m. Hawaii Standard Time.
Vindell Hsu, a geophysicist at the Tsunami Warning Center said an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 people who live in Hawaii’s coastal zones had been urged to move to higher ground until after 10:30 p.m.
Governor Neil Abercrombie issued an emergency proclamation for the state.
The US Geological Survey said the quake was centred 198 km south-southwest of Prince Rupert at a depth of 10 km. (Reuters)