Americas

Home page

Americas

Hurricane Sandy slogs toward U.S., 41 killed in Caribbean

27 October 2012 04:26 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Hurricane Sandy, a late-season Atlantic cyclone that threatens to be one of the worst storms to hit the Northeast in decades, slogged slowly northward on Friday after killing at least 41 people in the Caribbean, APA reports quoting Reuters.
Forecasters said wind damage, widespread and extended power outages and coastal and inland flooding were anticipated across a broad swath of the densely populated U.S. East Coast when Sandy comes ashore early next week.
"We’re expecting a large, large storm. The circulation of this storm as it approaches the coast could cover about the eastern third of the United States," said Louis Uccellini, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Centers for Environmental Prediction.
He stopped short of calling Sandy possibly the worst storm to hit the U.S. Northeast in 100 years, as some weather watchers were doing, but said Sandy was shaping up to go down as a storm of "historic" proportions.
The late-season hybrid storm has been dubbed "Frankenstorm" by some weather watchers because it will combine elements of a tropical cyclone and a winter storm. Forecast models show it will have all of the ingredients to morph into a massive and potentially catastrophic "super storm."
On its current projected track, government forecasters said, Sandy could make landfall on Monday night or Tuesday in Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York or southern New England.
In New York City, the global financial hub, officials were considering closing down mass transit before the storm hits.
ROMNEY, BIDEN CANCEL TRIPS
Coming in the final weeks before the U.S. presidential election on November 6, the storm could throw last-minute campaign travel plans into chaos.
An aide to Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney said he had canceled a campaign event scheduled for Sunday night in Virginia Beach, Virginia. President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign announced that Vice President Joe Biden had also canceled a trip to Virginia Beach scheduled for Saturday.
The Democratic incumbent was traveling to New Hampshire on Saturday, and on Monday was due to visit Youngstown, Ohio, and Orlando, Florida.
Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said he and the head of the U.S. National Hurricane Center had briefed the president on preparations for the storm on Friday morning.
"His direction to us again, as always, is to make sure we are prepared to support the states and the governors dependent upon the impacts of the storm," Fugate told reporters.