Hurricane Sandy: East Coast Braces for Superstorm - East Idaho News
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Hurricane Sandy: East Coast Braces for Superstorm

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GETTY N 102712 Hurricane?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1351358613361Stockbyte/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Gov. Chris Christie declared a state of emergency Saturday morning in New Jersey and issued evacuation orders for South Jersey barrier islands by Sunday afternoon in preparation for Hurricane Sandy, which is expected to make landfall in Delaware on Tuesday and has already killed 43 people in the Caribbean.

He said he expects greater damage during this storm than in Hurricane Irene last year, because Sandy is expected to linger for 48 to 60 hours. The state will be lowering its reservoir and lake levels in hopes of minimizing flooding to nearby areas. PATH trains are already using sand bags and pumps to prevent flooding, and New Jersey Central Power and Light warns residents to expect outages for a week or more after Sandy hits.

“I think this could be more severe than Irene given some of the rain projections that they’re giving us,” he said. “We’re going to be looking at some pretty significant damage to the shore.”

Meteorologists downgraded Sandy from hurricane status Saturday morning but upgraded it back to a hurricane a few hours later, after hurricane-force winds kicked up again.

“Air Force hurricane hunters have been out flying in and around the storm and they found that it’s reintensified and it’s gotten back to a hurricane with peak winds of about 75 miles per hour,” National Hurricane Center meteorologist Chris Lancey said.

The Navy had initially ordered all ships to leave the port of Norfolk, Va., because of the storm, it has since canceled the order because the projected storm surge and winds aren’t as bad as originally expected. The ships should be able to weather the storm in port, according to the Navy.

The storm is pounding Florida beaches on Saturday with 5- to 10-foot waves and is easily visible from space, stretching hundreds of miles across.

But soon, Sandy will meet up with a cold front coming from the northwest and a high pressure system from Greenland, fueling it with enough energy to make it more powerful than the “Perfect Storm” from 1991, Hurricane Grace, some meteorologists say.

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