WASHINGTON
(AP) -- When Hurricane Sandy becomes a hybrid weather monster some call
"Frankenstorm" it will smack the East Coast harder and wider than last
year's damaging Irene, forecasters said Friday.
The
brunt of the weather mayhem will be concentrated where the hurricane
comes ashore early Tuesday, but there will be hundreds of miles of
steady, strong and damaging winds and rain for the entire Eastern region
for several days, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
The hurricane has killed at
least 20 people in the Caribbean, and just left the Bahamas. It is
expected to move north, just off the Eastern Seaboard.
As
of Friday morning, federal forecasters were looking closer at the
Delaware shore as the spot it will turn inland and merge with a wintry
storm front. But there is a lot of room for error in the forecast and
the storm could turn into shore closer to New York and New Jersey and
bring the worst weather there.
Wherever Sandy
comes ashore will get 10 inches of rain and extreme storm surges, Louis
Uccellini, NOAA's environmental prediction director, said in a Friday
news conference. Other areas not directly on Sandy's entry path will
still get 4 to 8 inches of rain, maybe more, he said. Up to 2 feet of
snow should fall on West Virginia, with lighter snow in parts of Ohio
and Pennsylvania, regardless of where Sandy first hits.
A
wide swath of the East, measuring several hundreds of miles, will get
persistent gale-force winds in the 50 mph area, with some areas closer
to storm landfall getting closer to 70 mph, said James Franklin,
forecast chief for the National Hurricane Center.
"It's
going to be a long-lasting event, two to three days of impact for a lot
of people," Franklin said. "Wind damage, widespread power outages,
heavy rainfall, inland flooding and somebody is going to get a
significant surge event."
That storm surge will only be magnified by the full moon this weekend to make it a "dangerous period," Uccellini said.
Last
year's Hurricane Irene was a minimal hurricane that caused widespread
damage as it moved north along the coast after making landfall in North
Carolina. With catastrophic inland flooding in New Jersey, Massachusetts
and Vermont, federal officials say Irene caused $15.8 billion in
damage.
Sandy is "looking like a very serious
storm that could be historic," said Jeff Masters, meteorology director
of the forecasting service Weather Underground. "Mother Nature is not
saying, `Trick or treat.' It's just going to give tricks."
Government forecasters said there is a 90 percent chance - up from 60 percent two days earlier - that the East will get pounded.
Utilities
are lining up out-of-state work crews and canceling employees' days off
to deal with expected power outages. From county disaster chiefs to the
federal government, emergency officials are warning the public to be
prepared. And President Barack Obama was briefed aboard Air Force One.
Boat
owners were yanking their vessels out of the water Friday at the
Southside Marina in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., about 60 miles south of
New York City.
"We're taking them out as fast as we can," said marina employee Jim Martin.
Atlantic
City's casinos made contingency plans in case they have to close, as
they did for three days last year when Tropical Storm Irene approached.
Eastern
states that saw outages that lasted for days after last year's freak
Halloween snowstorm and Hurricane Irene are already pressuring power
companies to be more ready this time.
Asked if he expected utilities to be more prepared, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick responded: "They'd better be."
Jersey
Central Power & Light, which was criticized for its response to
Irene, notified employees to be ready for extended shifts. In
Pennsylvania, PPL Corp. spokesman Michael Wood said, "We're in a much
better place this year."
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday said the city was striking a tone of calm preparedness.
"What
we are doing is we are taking the kind of precautions you should expect
us to do, and I don't think
anyone should panic," Bloomberg said. The
city has opened an emergency situation room and activated its coastal
storm plan.
Sandy was expected to deal only a
glancing blow to North Carolina's Outer Banks, where Lori Hilby said she
planned to ride out this storm at home, unlike past storms such as
Irene. Hilby, the manager at Tommy's Natural Foods Market and Wine
Emporium in Duck, N.C., said the shop would remain open throughout the
storm. She said she sold a fair amount of beer and wine to people who
planned to ride out the storm on the barrier island.
"I'll
never evacuate again," Hilby said. She said most of the power lines
there are underground, so the power often stays on even during powerful
storms.
"Whenever I evacuate, I always end up
somewhere and they lose power and my house is fine. So I'm always
wishing I was home instead of at somebody else's house with no power."
There
are still plenty of stores open in Duck, and Halloween decorations and
displays were still on houses despite the rain that started to roll in
Friday. Few homes were boarded up.
Some have
compared the tempest to the so-called Perfect Storm that struck off the
coast of New England in 1991, but that one hit a less populated area.
Nor is this one like last year's Halloween storm, which was merely an
early snowfall.
"The Perfect Storm only did
$200 million of damage and I'm thinking a billion" this time, Masters
said. "Yeah, it will be worse."
