Hurricane Sandy: Live Updates, New York City

NEW YORK—As Hurricane Sandy continues to track north toward New York City, officials are gearing up to protect the city from potential flooding and high winds.

Highlights: — New York City Braces for Hurricane Sandy  *  Hurricane Sandy Aims at New York  *

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10:28 p.m. Sunday

The next briefing from Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Hurricane Sandy will be at 11:30 a.m. Monday morning, the mayor’s office announced via Twitter. 

Other briefings will be held by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the first at 10 a.m. at Ground Zero, the second at 1 p.m. in Queens, and the third at 3 p.m. in Nassau County. 

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10:25 p.m. Sunday — Photo Recap

9:57 p.m. Sunday — Deserted Transit Stations 

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7:57 p.m. Sunday — Few Businesses Remain Open, Streets Emptying Out

Businesses across New York City are shutting down in preparation for Hurricane Sandy, which is expected to hit before midnight Sunday.

Lower Manhattan has been like a ghost town since Sunday afternoon, with many businesses closed and few residents seen.

Yet even outside of Zone A, the mandatory evacuation areas, many businesses—particularly chains—have shut their doors, to the dismay of passersby.

Along Sixth Avenue in Midtown, Duane Reade, Starbucks, Chipotle, Best Buy, Staples, McDonalds, and Trader Joe’s were closed by 7 p.m.

A slew of small businesses and a handful of street vendors remained open and busy.

“We’re open 24 hours unless the weather gets really bad,” said Ali, manager of Star Gourmet Deli and Pizza at the intersection of 27th and 6th. We’ll be open tomorrow unless the weather gets really bad. We’re not scared because it’s just like last time. A little rain is nothing. If it gets bad we’ll close down the shop and sleep in the basement.”

Employees at three other delis in the area said they would remain open.

“We don’t think it’s serious,” said Patinder Singh, a manager at 876 Market on 6th Ave.. The market will be open Monday and Tuesday “unless the weather gets really bad and there is flooding.”

CVS was the only chain store open. A manager said he expects the store to close at 7 a.m. Monday until the end of the storm.

Shoppers often walked up to the doors of the businesses, mistakenly thinking they were open. Signs were posted on the doors of all the businesses except for Duane Reade, which appeared open at first glance.

Meanwhile, the city’s Department of Small Business Services urged businesses to secure important records, including lists of employees, key customers and clients, and suppliers, and prepare for possible loss of utilities by having supplies such as battery-powered lights.

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6:19 p.m. Sunday — Lower Manhattan, Wall Street Area ‘Like a Ghost Town’

In Lower Manhattan, where many buildings fall under Zone A (the mandatory evacuation area), businesses are closed and sandbags are in front of buildings.

The area “is like a ghost town,” says Epoch Times reporter Kristen Meriwether, who surveyed the area in the late afternoon.

A few street vendors were still out. One sold replicas of the famous bull statue near the statue. A halel food truck, parked at the intersection of William Street and Wall Street, had a line form in front of it.

“From where we are from, this storm is nothing,” said Mdali Alif, 15, of Bangledesh, who was working in the truck. Alif and his fellow employees planned to leave at 7 p.m., but thought all the measures being taken were “stupid.”

Subway stops had plywood surrounding them, prepared for the 7 p.m. closure. Few residents were seen yet a fair amount of tourists still wandered around.…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

4:47 p.m. Sunday – Senior Meteorologist Says Hurricane Sandy ‘One of the most extraordinary’

Stu Ostro, senior meteorologist with The Weather Channel, says Hurricane Sandy will “will occupy a place in the annals of weather history as one of the most extraordinary to have affected the United States.”

Ostro said people in the path of the storm “need to heed the threat it poses with utmost urgency.”

Among his tips in an online post are taking evacuation orders seriously; preparing for downed trees and damage to buildings (by staying inside and in the most interior portion of the building); and knowing that you could be without power for a long time while also remembering the potential danger from carbon monoxide poisoning with improper use of a generator.

Hurricane Sandy has swept up through the Caribbean Islands a portion of the Bahamas, and caused “severe erosion” to some Florida beaches. Now, says Ostra, it is poised to stroke the Northeastern United States.

“Already, there are ominous signs: trees down in eastern North Carolina, the first of countless that will be blown over or uprooted along the storm’s path; and coastal flooding in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, these impacts occurring despite the center of circulation being so far offshore, an indication of Sandy’s exceptional size and potency,” Ostra wrote.

The National Hurricane Center has the center of the hurricane mapped at West of the Carolinas as of 2 p.m.

Ostra says “A meteorologically mind-boggling combination of ingredients is coming together.”

“One of the largest expanses of tropical storm (gale) force winds on record with a tropical or subtropical cyclone in the Atlantic or for that matter anywhere else in the world; a track of the center making a sharp left turn in direction of movement toward New Jersey in a way that is unprecedented in the historical database, as it gets blocked from moving out to sea by a pattern that includes an exceptionally strong ridge of high pressure aloft near Greenland; a “warm-core” tropical cyclone embedded within a larger, nor’easter-like circulation; and eventually tropical moisture and arctic air combining to produce heavy snow in interior high elevations. This is an extraordinary situation, and I am not prone to hyperbole.”

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4:48 p.m. Sunday– Google Releases Hurricane Sandy Evacuation Map

Google has created a map specifically for Hurricane Sandy, showing evacuation zones and shelter locations. The interactive zone finder from the city’s Office of Emergency Management has high traffic to the point of 20 minutes delays, so this map might be more useful in finding out whether you are in Zone A and should evacuate.

Note that only the orange areas are considered to be flood risk areas.

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4:30 p.m. Sunday – Mayor Bloomberg Warns Zone A Residents to Evacuate Immediately

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in his second Hurricane Sandy update on Sunday that New Yorkers in Zone A should evacuate immediately, either finding family or friends to stay with or locating one of the 76 shelters around the city in public schools. Bloomberg spoke at Seward High School, the site of one of the shelters.

“The most important thing I can say right now is if you live in Zone A, evacuate,” said Bloomberg. He said evacuations other than Zone A are not expected.

Zone A includes Battery Park and most of the land near the water in Lower Manhattan and lower Midtown; Brooklyn’s Western coast including Red Hook and North Greenpoint; and the Rockaways and Coney Island areas.

The map showing the evacuation areas also shows locations of the shelters (pdf).

Within Zone A areas are about 25,000 public housing residents, who are encouraged to leave especially because elevators, heat, and hot water within the buildings will be shut down starting at 7 p.m.

New York Public Housing Authority staff have “knocked on every door and did everything they possibly could” to alert the residents, said Bloomberg.

NYPD officers have been going around Zone A areas and broadcasting evacuation orders through loudspeakers.

Meanwhile, neighbors can help each other out and there are no plans for evacuating Rikers Island or closing bridges or tunnels at the moment.

New York Harbor will be closing Sunday night and cruise ships meant to dock there have been diverted until Monday and Tuesday.

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3:34 p.m. Sunday — Emergency Preparedness

Hurricane Sandy “is expected to lose its characteristics as a tropical cyclone and take on the structure of a wintertime low-pressure area,” according to the National Hurricane Center in a release on Oct. 27.

Yet this doesn’t mean Sandy will not be destructive.

The latest update on Sunday at 2 p.m. pegs Sandy as “expected to bring life-threatening storm surge flooding to the mid-Atlantic coast,” including Long Island and New York Harbor, according to the center.

The primary difference between a topical cyclone and a wintertime cyclone is the energy source, according to the Hurricane Center. Tropical cyclones feed off heat from the ocean while wintertime cyclones mostly get energy from temperature contrasts. These differences manifest in wintertime cyclones having “a broader wind field and more complex distributions of rain and snow,” according to the center.

Storm surges from 6 to 11 feet in New York City on Monday during high tide are projected by the National Weather Service.

The center of Sandy is currently east of the Carolinas and Sandy has maximum wind speeds of 75 miles per hour. The projected path of the hurricane, seen in the graphic, has it hitting Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania through Wednesday morning, and South and West New York soon after.

After that, Sandy is projected to turn into a rain storm moving to the Northeast United States and Canada.

Emergency aid has already been made available to the state of Maryland because of damage from Hurricane Sandy, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Read how to prepare for a hurricane.

President Obama released a video on Oct. 27 asking Americans to help each other.

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3:27 p.m. Subways, Buses, Ferries, and Airports to Close

Transit systems throughout the New York metropolitan area are shutting down service on Sunday due to Hurricane Sandy.

Most prominently, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is shutting down the subway system and commuter rail systems (Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North) beginning at 7 p.m. Sunday.

Buses will cease operating from 9 p.m. Sunday. Access-a-ride, a service for disabled persons, will stop at 5 p.m. Sunday.

The East River Ferry is closed until further notice. Staten Island Ferry will operate until 8 p.m. on Sunday from St. George Terminal and until 8:30 p.m. from Whitehall Terminal, after which service will be suspended until further notice.

The Staten Island Railway will try to continue operations until the ferry suspends service, so no customers are stranded at St. George Terminal, but could shut down “if conditions are deemed unsafe,” according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office.

Meanwhile, the PATH system, which runs in both New York to New Jersey, will be shut down beginning 11:59 p.m. on Oct. 28.

“The PATH system is being closed to passengers so that trains and stations can be secured in advance of the storm, and protected against damage from high winds and water,” according to an email from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which manages the system. “PATH service will resume as soon as conditions permit.”

The authority also controls the area’s five major airports. All major airlines at those airports are expected to cease all flights starting Sunday night.

For stranded travelers, the authority is bringing in cots and other essentials, and at least one food vendor will remain open in all airport terminals around the clock throughout the storm.

The AirTrain systems at Newark and JFK airports will be shut down after 7 p.m. Sunday evening.

Bridges and tunnels in the area, which are managed by either the Port Authority and/or the MTA, haven’t been closed yet or had closures announced but the Port Authority expects to close the bridges it manages beginning Monday morning. The MTA said its seven bridges and two tunnels will remain open Sunday evening and no announcements have been made regarding Monday.

Amtrak announced Sunday afternoon that its Northeast Corridor trains and its Keystone trains for Oct. 29th are canceled.

Lastly, the Roosevelt Island Tram and Red Bus will continue until further notice, according to the island’s Operating Corporation.

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3 p.m. Sunday — Public Schools Closed on Monday

All public schools will be closed on Monday, Oct. 29 because of expected weather conditions from Hurricane Sandy, said Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott on Sunday.

All administrative offices will be open, however, according to the city’s Department of Education. The department has asked school staff assigned to a shelter site to report to that site.

A decision about opening schools on Tuesday will be made on Monday, but the hurricane is expected to get worse on Monday.

Private schools and universities throughout the state and city are also closing. Columbia University has canceled all classes and events on Monday, and non-essential personnel are not required to report to work.   

The School at Columbia University, an independent K through 8 school, will also be closed. Fordham Prep will also be closed on Monday, and will be closed on Tuesday if the New York City transit system is not running on Tuesday, which is up in the air but looks likely.

Other universities closing include all schools within the City University of New York system and New York University.

For a real time feed of private schools announcing their closings, visit http://www.nysais.org/

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2:45 p.m. Sunday — Updated Evacuation Zone Map Released By Mayor Bloomberg

The office of Mayor Michael Bloomberg released an updated evacuation zone map at 1 p.m. Sunday.

Bloomberg said in his late morning public address concerning Hurricane Sandy that evacuation is mandatory of Zone A areas (indicated in the map).

Many of the coastal areas around Lower- to Mid-Manhattan are indicated as evacuation zones, as well as areas along the Brooklyn coastline, Governors Island, the Rockaways, and Hamilton Beach.

“Let me stress: If you don’t evacuate… you’re not just putting your own life in danger; you are endangering the lives of first responders who may have to come in and rescue you,” Bloomberg said from City Hall. “And we hope you don’t face those kinds of dire situations, but you could.”

New Yorkers living in Zone A should contact relatives and friends and arrange a place to stay. Otherwise, 65 shelters are open around the city.

Find a shelter near you. http://gis.nyc.gov/oem/he/search.htm