Blackout: The skyline of lower Manhattan sits in darkness after a preventive power outage in New York on Monday night.
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New York City was this morning plunged into darkness by a superstorm that overflowed its historic waterfront, flooded the financial district and subway tunnels and cut power to hundreds of thousands of people.
Superstorm Sandy knocked out power to at least 6.2million people across the US East, and large sections of Manhattan were plunged into darkness by the storm, with 250,000 customers without power as water pressed into the island from three sides, flooding rail yards, subway tracks, tunnels and roads.
The city had shut its mass transit system, schools, the stock exchange and Broadway and ordered hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to leave home to get out of the way. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city's 911 dispatchers are receiving about 20,000 calls per hour.
The revelation came following an extraordinary day that saw the storm close in and converge with a cold-weather system that turned it into a superstorm, a monstrous hybrid consisting not only of rain and high wind but snow in West Virginia and other mountainous areas inland.
Empire State: The New York skyline remains dark on Monday as seen from the Williamsburg neighbourhood in the Brooklyn borough of New York.
Bang: This image from video provided by Dani Hart shows what appears to be a transformer exploding in lower Manhattan as seen from a building rooftop in Brooklyn.
Bright light: This photo shows what appear to be transformers exploding after much of lower Manhattan lost power during Superstorm Sandy in New York.
Flooding: Water rushes into the Carey Tunnel (previously the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel), caused by Sandy on Monday night in the financial district of New York.
Gushing water: Sea water floods the Ground Zero construction site on Monday in New York.
Extraordinary: This CCTV photo shows flood waters from Hurricane Sandy rushing in to the Hoboken PATH train station through an elevator shaft in New Jersey.
Help: New York City resident Gary He posted this picture with the caption 'Dude in snorkeling mask trying to rescue his friend in Greenpoint (Brooklyn)'.
It smacked the boarded-up big cities of the Northeast corridor - Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston - with stinging rain and gusts of more than 85 mph.
Sixteen deaths were reported in New Jersey, New York, Maryland, North Carolina, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Connecticut, with at least five of these in New York. Some of the victims were killed by falling trees. At least one death was blamed on the storm in Canada.
Storm damage was projected at up to £12million, meaning it could be one of the costliest natural disasters in US history. Nineteen workers were trapped inside a Consolidated Edison power station in east Manhattan by rising flood waters, with a rescue worker saying it had suffered an explosion inside.
Firefighters used inflatable orange boats to rescue the utility workers trapped for three hours. One of the Con Ed workers pulled from the floodwater, Angelo Amato, said he was part of a crew who had offered to work through the storm. 'This is what happens when you volunteer,' he said.
About 670,000 customers were without power late Monday in New York City and suburban Westchester County. 'This will be one for the record books,' ConEdison spokesman John Miksad. 'This will be the largest storm-related outage in our history.'
Because a customer is defined as an individual meter, the actual number of people affected is probably much higher. It could be several days to a week before all residents who lost power during the storm get their lights back, Mr Miksad said.
Wall Street is expected to remain closed today, while the United Nations cancelled all meetings at its New York headquarters. It will be the first time the New York Stock Exchange will be closed for two consecutive days due to weather since 1888, when a blizzard struck the city.
Residents in New York City spent much of yesterday trying to salvage normal routines, jogging and snapping pictures of the water while officials warned the worst of the storm had not hit.
Water lapped over the seawall in Battery Park City, flooding rail yards, subway tracks, tunnels and roads.
SANDY KILLS AT LEAST 16 PEOPLE
At least 16 people have died in the devastation wreaked by Superstorm Sandy - including two children killed instantly by a falling tree.
The children aged 11 and 13 were crushed by the toppled tree as they played outside their home in Westchester County, New York state at 6.45pm on Sunday.
Other fatalities include a woman who was electrocuted to death by falling wires on Manhattan’s 134th street and a 29-year-old man who was killed in a car crash in Queens.
A man was crushed by a falling tree in Ulster County, New York State, and one death has been reported in Connecticut and two people were killed when their pick-up was crushed by a falling tree in New Jersey.
Police in Toronto said a woman was killed by a falling sign as high winds closed in on Canada's largest city. A 30-year-old man was killed when a tree fell on his house on 166th street in Flushing, New York City.
Meanwhile a 62-year-old man was killed as he let his dog out on his porch in Oley, Pennsylvania.
An eight-year-old boy died when he was crushed by a falling tree in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. And a jogger was reportedly hospitalised after being crushed by a falling tree in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.
No movement: Vehicles are submerged on 14th Street near the Consolidated Edison power plant on Monday in Manhattan, New York.
Underwater: A vehicle is submerged on 14th Street near the Consolidated Edison power plant on Monday night in New York.
Leaving: Guests in the lobby of Le Parker Meridien hotel just south of Central Park prepare to move to other hotels after a nearby construction crane collapsed.
Tanja Stewart and her 7-year-old son, Finn, came from their home in Manhattan's TriBeCa neighborhood to admire the white caps on the Hudson, Finn wearing a pair of binoculars around his neck. ‘I really wanted to see some big waves,’ he said.
Keith Reilly posed in an Irish football jersey for a picture above the rising waters of New York Harbor with the Statue of Liberty in the background. ‘This is not so bad right now,’ said the 25-year-old Reilly.
On Long Island, flood waters had begun to deluge some low-lying towns and nearly 150,000 customers had lost power. Cars floated along the streets of Long Beach and flooding consumed several blocks south of the bay, residents said.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, holding a news conference on Long Island where the lights flickered and his mike went in and out, said most of the National Guards deployed to the New York City area would go to Long Island.
Anoush Vargas drove with her husband, Michael to the famed Jones Beach on Monday morning, only to find it covered by water.
‘We have no more beach. It's gone,’ she said, shaking her head as she watched the waves go under the boardwalk.
NYC'S HISTORY OF HURRICANES
1821 Hurricane: Without modern technology, the hurricane in September, 1821, caught New Yorkers off guard when, in one hour, the tide rose 13 feet. The East River and Hudson River breached, with their waters meeting across Lower Manhattan. The area was not largely populated then, so there were few deaths
1893 Hurricane A Category 1 hurricane completely destroyed Hog Island, a resort island in southern Queens
1938 Hurricane Nearly 200 people were killed when the Category 3 hurricane swept over Long Island and into New England. It caused millions of dollars of damages in NYC, where it killed 10 people and destroyed hundreds of trees in Central Park
1954, Carol The hurricane, which had sustained winds of more than 100mph, hit eastern Long Island and caused major flooding throughout New York City
1955, Connie and Diane Rain from the two hurricanes caused flooding across the city. There were more than 200 deaths in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey
1960, Donna The hurricane created an 11-foot storm tide in the New York Harbor, inflicting extensive pier damage
1972, Agnes The tropical storm flooded areas from North Caroline to New York and caused 122 deaths and more than $6 billion in damage
1985, Gloria Serious damage was inflicted on Long Island
1996, Bertha The tropical storm washed out the city in July 1966
1999, Floyd The tropical storm hit New Jersey and New York with 60mph winds and dropped up to 15 inches of rain. Flash flooding forced residents from their homes
2011, Irene The hurricane was downgraded to a tropical storm just before hitting the city, which had issued mandatory evacuation orders for those living along the coast. Up to 7 inches of rain fell as winds reached 65 mph. It inflicted an estimated $100 million in damages
Source: Information from the New York City and Nassau County Offices of Emergency Management.
Culled from The Daily Mail UK.
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Simply Cheska...
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