Mid-Atlantic States Start to Feel Effects of Storm
With Hurricane Sandy still churning several hundred miles off the
Eastern Seaboard, its impact was already being felt in mid-Atlantic
states late Sunday night.
There were reports of roadways flooding, and Gov. Jack Markell of
Delaware ordered that no one would be allowed on Delaware roads after 5
a.m. on Monday.
Along the Maryland, Virginia and Delaware coasts, winds began to pick up intensity, and bands of rain whipped coastal towns.
Near the Norfolk Naval Station, there were reports of sustained winds of 45 miles per hour and gusts topping 53 miles per hour.
The latest forecast from the National Hurricane Center, issued at 11
p.m., said that the storm was still 470 miles from New York City and
moving northward at 14 miles per hour.
It was not losing steam as it plowed forward. Hurricane force winds
over 75 miles per hour were measured by monitors on ocean buoys 170
miles from the storm’s center. Tropical force winds extended 520 miles
from the heart of the giant weather system.
The computer tracking models showed the storm still likely to make
landfall somewhere in the vicinity of southern New Jersey by late Monday
evening.
In Ocean City, Md., where residents were evacuated earlier in the
day, live-streaming Web cams – now disabled – showed the storm surge
already reaching up to the boardwalk.