Mammoth storm shutters NYC

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Superstorm Sandy zeroed in on New York’s waterfront with fierce rain and winds that shuttered most of the nation’s largest city Monday, darkened the financial district and left a huge crane hanging off a luxury high-rise.

The threat of a record 13-foot storm surge inundating downtown Manhattan prompted officials to close the mass-transit system and cut power pre-emptively to parts of downtown Manhattan to avoid damage from incoming seawater.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said backup power had been lost at New York University hospital and the city was working to move people out.

The mayor delivered a news conference Monday night and said rain was tapering off in the city and the storm surge was expected to recede by midnight.

He urged residents not to call 911 unless it was an emergency and implored them to stay off the roads so emergency vehicles could get around.

He said a few parts of lower Manhattan still had power. He said there have been a large number of fires reported from downed power lines.

Water began lapping over the lower Manhattan seawall earlier, about ankle-deep, as officials anxiously awaited high tide. Water began pooling in rail yards and on highways near the Hudson River waterfront on Manhattan’s far west side.

On coastal Long Island, floodwaters swamped cars, downed trees and put neighborhoods under water as beachfronts and fishing villages bore the brunt of the storm. A police car was lost rescuing 14 people from the popular resort Fire Island.

The storm had killed only one New Yorker by Monday night, a man who died when a tree fell on his home in the Flushing section of Queens.

The collapsed crane suspended over midtown caused the evacuation of hundreds from a posh hotel and other buildings. Inspectors were climbing 74 flights of stairs to examine it. Meteorologists said the winds could have been close to 95 mph at the top of the $1.5 billion building when the crane tipped.

The facade of a four- story Manhattan building in the Chelsea neighborhood crumbled and collapsed suddenly, leaving the lights, couches, cabinets and desks inside visible from the street. No one was hurt, although some of the falling debris hit a car.

The city shut its subways, schools, stock exchanges, Broadway theaters and closed several bridges and tunnels throughout the day as the weather worsened. Late Monday, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey closed LaGuardia Airport, although major carriers had cancelled all their flights hours earlier.

Consolidated Edison cut power pre-emptively to parts of Manhattan bordered by the Brooklyn Bridge and the East River, trying to lessen damage to underground equipment from the massive storm, spokesman Chris Olert said. About 6,500 customers lost power, he said; the utility reported more than 65,000 outages from the storm in the city and suburban Westchester County.