In New York, lower
Manhattan's Battery Park recorded nearly 14-foot tide, smashing a record
set by 1960's Hurricane Donna by more than 3 feet. The city had already
halted service on its bus and train lines, closing schools and ordering
about 400,000 people out of their homes in low-lying areas of Manhattan
and elsewhere.
Flooding forced the
closure of all three of the major airports in the area, LaGuardia, John
F. Kennedy and Newark Liberty. Water seeped into subway stations in
Lower Manhattan and into the tunnel connecting Lower Manhattan and
Brooklyn, while high winds damaged a crane perched atop a Midtown
skyscraper under construction, forcing authorities to evacuate the
surrounding area.
New York Mayor Michael
Bloomberg told reporters there was an "extraordinary" amount of water in
Lower Manhattan, as well as downed trees throughout the city and
widespread power outages.
"We knew that this was
going to be a very dangerous storm, and the storm has met our
expectations," he said. "The worst of the weather has come, and city
certainly is feeling the impacts."
The storm was blamed for
more than 2.8 million outages across the Northeast. About 350,000 of
them were in the New York city area, where utility provider Con Edison
reported it had also cut power to customers in parts of Brooklyn and
Lower Manhattan to protect underground equipment as the storm waters
rose.
But as water crept into
its substations, Con Ed said it had lost service to about 250,000
customers in Manhattan -- including most of the island south of 39th
Street.
No comments:
Post a Comment