SHIP BOTTOM, n.j. — Forget distinctions such as tropical storm or hurricane. Don’t get fixated on a particular track. Wherever it hits, the rare behemoth storm inexorably gathering in the eastern U.S. will afflict a third of the country with sheets of rain, high winds and heavy snow, say officials who warned millions in coastal areas to get out of the way.
“We’re looking at impact of greater than 50 (million) to 60 million people,” said Louis Uccellini, head of environmental prediction for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
As Hurricane Sandy barreled north from the Caribbean — where it left nearly five dozen dead — to meet two powerful winter storms, experts said it didn’t matter how strong the storm was when it hit land: The rare hybrid storm that follows will cause havoc spanning 800 miles, from the East Coast to the Great Lakes.
“This is not a coastal threat alone,” said Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “This is a very large area.”
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie declared a state of emergency Saturday as the state was set to close its casinos. New York’s governor was considering shutting down the subways to avoid flooding, and half a dozen states warned residents to prepare for several days of lost power.
Sandy weakened briefly to a tropical storm early Saturday but was soon back up to Category 1 strength, packing 75 mph winds about 335 miles southeast of Charleston, S.C., as of 5 p.m. Experts said the storm was most likely to hit the southern New Jersey coastline by late Monday or early Tuesday.
Governors from North Carolina, where heavy rain was expected Sunday, to Connecticut declared states of emergency. Delaware ordered mandatory evacuations for coastal communities by 8 p.m. Sunday.
Christie, who had been widely criticized for not interrupting a family vacation in Florida while a snowstorm pummeled the state in 2010, broke off campaigning for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in North Carolina on Friday to return home.
“I can be as cynical as anyone,” the pugnacious chief executive said Saturday. “But when the storm comes, if it’s as bad as they’re predicting, you’re going to wish you weren’t as cynical as you otherwise might have been.”
The storm forced the presidential campaigns to juggle schedules. Romney scrapped plans to campaign Sunday in the swing state of Virginia and switched his schedule for the day to Ohio. Michelle Obama canceled appearances in New Hampshire and Boston on Tuesday, and President Barack Obama announced he would return to the White House on Monday, canceling events Monday in Virginia and Tuesday in Colorado Springs.
What makes the storm so dangerous and unusual is that it is coming at the end of hurricane season and the beginning of winter storm season, “so it’s kind of taking something from both,” said Jeff Masters, director of the private service Weather Underground.
Masters said the storm could be bigger than the worst East Coast storm on record — the 1938 New England hurricane known as the Long Island Express, which killed nearly 800 people. Experts said to expect up to 2 feet of snow as far inland as West Virginia.
Rare recipe brewing for a beastly storm
Start with Sandy, an ordinary late-summer hurricane from the tropics, moving north up the East Coast. Bring in a high-pressure ridge of air centered on Greenland that blocks the hurricane’s normal out-to-sea path and steers it west toward land.
Add a wintry cold front moving in from the west that helps pull Sandy inland, and mix in a blast of Arctic air from the north for one big collision. Add a full moon and its usual effect, driving high tides. Factor in immense waves commonly thrashed up by a huge hurricane plus massive gale-force winds.
Do all that, and you get a stitched-together weather monster expected to unleash its power across 800 miles, with predictions in some areas of 12 inches of rain, 2 feet of snow and sustained winds of 40 to 50 mph.
“The total is greater than the sum of the individual parts” said Louis Uccellini, the environmental-prediction chief of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologists. “That is exactly what’s going on here.”
Uccellini estimated that up to 60 million people will feel the storm’s wrath somehow. The Associated Press
