Superstorm Sandy floods NYC streets, causes massive blackouts

Source:Xinhua Published: 2012-10-30 15:30:00

Hurricane-turned-superstorm Sandy Monday flooded streets, leaving many parts of the New York City in the darkness, affecting airports, subways, and even hospitals.

Runways at the Laguardian International Airport were submerged and some sections of the city's subways were under four feet of water, while the power outage spread from the financial hub of lower Manhanton to the East Side, local media said.

The city's utility supplier Consolidated Edison said it shut electricity supply in certain Manhanttan neighborhoods to protect underwater systems from flood damage, while the outage in the east side was caused by flooding and probable loss of a transmission feeder.

The storm killed at least one city resident, who died when a tree fell on his home in the Flushing section of Queens.

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

With the storm expected to linger, the New York bourse house will be closed for a second day on Tuesday, after its shutdown on Monday, for the first time since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

As of 8 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT Tuesday), the National Hurricane Center's latest data showed the storm's maxim sustained winds were holding at about 130 kph and the storm was moving northwest at 37 kph.

Besides New York, the storm also hit other densely-populated eastern U.S. cities such as Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia.



Posted in: Americas

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