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A Far-Reaching System Leaves 8 Million Without Power
(about 1 hour later)
SCRANTON, Pa. — Flooded highways, downed power lines and rising rivers greeted people on Tuesday morning from Tennessee to Maine, with a blizzard warning and as much as three feet of snow expected to fall in West Virginia after the remnants of Hurricane Sandy rumbled through and a cold front from the north continued to push east.
SCRANTON, Pa. — The reach of the storm called Sandy was staggering, with devastation along the coasts, snow in Appalachia, power failures in Maine and high winds at the Great Lakes.
The storm, though vastly weaker than it was when it made landfall in New Jersey on Monday night, is moving west through southern Pennsylvania, bringing rain and high winds all the way to the Great Lakes, the National Weather Service reported. The system continued to pack winds of 65 miles per hour.
In West Virginia, two feet of snow fell in Terra Alta, where Carrie Luckel said she had to take drastic measures to stay warm. “We are seriously using a turkey fryer to keep our bedroom warm enough to live and a Coleman stove in our bedroom to heat up cans of soup,” Ms. Luckel said. “Our milk is sitting on the roof.”
Bowdon, W.Va., in the Appalachian Mountains, had received 14 inches of snow by Tuesday morning, and Mount Davis, in southern Pennsylvania, had 9 inches, the Weather Service said. A blizzard warning was in effect for the mountains of West Virginia and southwestern Virginia, where more than three feet of snow could eventually fall during the next few days, forecasters said.
Along the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago, gawkers who had come to see the crash of 20-foot waves were struggling against gusts that the National Weather Service said could reach 60 miles per hour. “It’s hard to even stand there and look,” said Mike Magic, 36.
In Milford, Del., it was rain, not snow, causing trouble.
The storm was very unlike last year’s deluging Hurricane Irene, which caused severe flooding across many states. The relative lack of rain and the weakening of the storm as it progresses means that the worst damage — and the historic significance — of this storm will be its battering effect on the East Coast, said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane expert at the University of Miami. “Irene will be remembered only for its rain, and Sandy will be remembered only for its surge,” he said.
Areas of central Delaware had received more than nine-and-a-half inches of rain by Tuesday morning, and a flood warning was in place along the Nanticoke River.
While the storm has weakened as it moved inland, its winds downed trees and caused some eight million utility customers to lose power. Coastal flooding hit Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and the storm left local flooding in its wake across Delaware, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. In Maryland, the sewage treatment plant for Howard County lost power, and about two million gallons of water and untreated sewage poured into the Patuxent River hourly. Still, Gov. Martin O’Malley said the state was “very, very fortunate to be on the kinder end of this very violent storm.”
Brian McNoldy, a hurricane expert at the University of Miami, said in an online posting Tuesday that heavy rainfall from the storm had also caused the Potomac River to reach its highest level since 1996. Flooding was expected along the river in Maryland and Virginia, officials said.
Forecasters said on Tuesday that they no longer expected the storm to turn to the northeast and travel across New England. Instead, the track shifted well to the west, and prediction models suggested a path through central Pennsylvania and western New York State before entering southern Ontario by Wednesday, said Eric Blake, a hurricane specialist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Forecasters said on Tuesday that they no longer expected the storm to turn to the northeast and travel across New England. Instead, the track has shifted well to the west, and prediction models suggest it will move through central Pennsylvania and western New York State before entering southern Ontario by Wednesday, said Eric Blake, a hurricane specialist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
In Scranton, residents enjoyed the relief that comes whenever bullets have been dodged.
As the storm continues to move inland and loses contact with the ocean — its source of moisture — rain levels are expected to diminish, though wind damage is still likely across a large area of the country, Mr. Blake said.
“People around here are very concerned about flooding after Irene last year — many people are just recovering,” said Simon Hewson, the general manager at Kildare’s Irish Pub. He prepared the establishment for a severe storm, then “just hunkered down and waited,” said Mr. Hewson, who hails from Dublin. He came in the next morning to an undamaged pub: “We got lucky.”
“You’ve got rain or snow extending from Georgia through Maine and Michigan,” he said. “When you have something over Pennsylvania, and Lake Michigan is seeing gale-force winds, you’ve got a very large storm.”
Experience with natural disaster in an environment that climate change has made increasingly unpredictable has taught strong lessons to many of those who have to deal with storms. Amy Shuler Goodwin, director of communications for the office of Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin of West Virginia, said “without question we are better prepared this time around than last time,” referring to the freakishly powerful “derecho” line of storms that slammed across 700 miles of the Midwest and the mid-Atlantic in July.
Classes at public schools and universities had been canceled Tuesday as far north as Maine and Vermont, which is still coping from damage to roads and bridges from Hurricane Irene last year.
As the storm continues to move inland and loses contact with the ocean — its source of moisture — rain levels are expected to diminish, though wind damage is still likely.
In New Hampshire, more than 200,000 homes had no power, and in Maine, where more than 100,000 people were without electricity, a flood warning was issued for the Swift River. Most flights out of Portland International Jetport had been canceled Tuesday morning.
When it comes time to assess the damage and help clean up the mess caused by the storm, the Army Corps of Engineers will have plenty of work on its hands, said Col. Kent D. Savre, the commander and division engineer for the corps’ North Atlantic division, whose operations stretch from Virginia to Maine; he expects help from corps districts across the nation: “They kind of come to the sound of the guns when there’s an event like this.”
Elsewhere in New England, there was heavy coastal flooding in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, where nearly 300,00 people had lost power.
For some, the storm brought wonder. At LeConte Lodge in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a hike-in set of cabins at 6,600 feet, about 25 visitors huddled around a fire while snow piled up in drifts of up to five feet, said Allyson Virden, who runs the lodge. The 22-inch snowfall is already eleven times greater than the average for October, but Ms. Virden tried looking on the bright side. “We don’t have power to lose up here,” she said. “And it’s gorgeous.”
In Pennsylvania, where the storm continued to cause damage Tuesday and two people had died, Gov. Tom Corbett extended the deadline for voters to request absentee ballots from Tuesday to Thursday. But a deadline to return such ballots via the mail had not been extended beyond Friday, despite disruptions in mail service, according to the governor’s office.
Reporting
was contributed by Brian Stelter from Delaware, Theo Emery from Maryland, John H. Cushman Jr. from Washington, Timothy Williams from New York, Katharine Q. Seelye from Boston, Kim Severson from Atlanta, Steven Yaccino from Chicago and Cynthia McCloud from Terra Alta, W.Va.
One million people in the state had no electricity — and in northeastern Pennsylvania, near the town of Hazelton, officials have asked residents living near Nescopeck Creek to evacuate.
Farther south, in North Carolina, Gov. Bev Perdue had declared one of the region’s numerous state of emergencies for several counties in the western part of the state due to heavy snowfall caused by moisture swept in by Hurricane Sandy.
The mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee are likely to get hit by more than 18 inches of snow over the next several days, while southwestern Virginia and parts of Kentucky may get even more — up to two feet, according to the National Weather Service.
“Our average snowfall for the month of October is two inches, and now here we are at over 22 inches, and we still have another day to go,” said Dana Soehn, a spokeswoman at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which straddles the border between Tennessee and North Carolina.
Those at lower elevations in the area were stuck with rain.
“It’s not pretty,” said Jim Rigsby, who was working the reservation desk at the Music Road Inn in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. “It’s just rain and yuck.”
Winds from the storm continued to be felt as far away as eastern Alabama, with some gusts topping 35 miles per hour.
In Maryland, at least two people were killed in weather-related accidents, one in a car accident, the second after a tree fell on a house, officials said.
The Maryland Emergency Management Agency said more than 365,000 homes and businesses had lost power, including 80 percent of customers in the western part of the state.
In Howard County, the storm knocked out power to the county sewage treatment plant around 11 p.m. Monday. About two million gallons of water and untreated sewage began pouring hourly into the Patuxent River, which flows into Chesapeake Bay. The spill however will not effect drinking water, said Ken Ulman, the County Executive.
In Garrett County, nestled in the state’s Allegheny Mountains, two feet of wet, sticky snow had fallen, said Sheriff Rob Corley. In a hectic two-hour period on Monday night, Sheriff Corley said his officers had responded to some 18 car accidents.
Snow continued to come down Tuesday, he said, and a failed power generator had forced the evacuation of a local nursing home.
“In the 17 years that I’ve been here, this has been the worst one as far as fire calls, E.M.S. calls, car wrecks, power outages,” Sheriff Corley said.
Despite the problems, Gov. Martin O’Malley said Tuesday that the state had been “very, very fortunate to be on the kinder end of this very violent storm.”
Highways and other roads throughout Virginia remained closed and the state has had at least two storm-related traffic accidents, said Marshall Barnhill, a spokeswoman for the state’s emergency operations center.
But many areas that had feared calamity escaped with little disruption.
In Boston, public schools reopened Tuesday, and subway and bus service also resumed, although Amtrak remained closed in the Northeast Corridor. Many people seemed to be getting back to their routines, with families planning for Halloween trick-or-treating Wednesday night.
Wind whipped through the streets of downtown Chicago on early Tuesday morning, where a lakeshore flood warning will be in effect until Wednesday. The National Weather Service said winds would reach more than 50 m.p.h. by Tuesday evening, bringing waves as high as 23 feet along the city’s shoreline.
Chicago officials have warned residents to take precautions against the high winds and to avoid the lakefront.
The city sent automated phone calls to some residents in Chicago late Monday night, said Delores Robinson, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Office of Emergency Management, warning them not to take Lake Shore Drive to work in the morning, though the road remains open.
John Schwartz reported from Scranton and Timothy Williams from New York. Reporting was contributed by Brian Stelter in Delaware, Theo Emery in Maryland, John H. Cushman Jr. in Washington, Katharine Q. Seelye in Boston, Kim Severson in Atlanta and Steven Yaccino in Chicago.
