It seems to be the only thing people are talking about, reading about or thinking about, and with good reason. Hurricane Sandy is set to impact millions of people along the eastern seaboard of the United States (per CNN up to 60 million people could be affected).
All it takes to gauge the potentially severity (and uniqueness) of the storm is one look at the National Weather Service’s home page. A map of the eastern region of the United States indexes all potential weather patterns in the area. So what does the forecast look like over the eastern seaboard? Hurricane force wind warnings, blizzard warnings, winter storm warnings, high wind warnings, flood warnings and coastal flood warnings.
Severe weather warnings extend from North Carolina to Maine. Sandy is set to be a record breaking storm because the hurricane will collide with a cold front, meaning that it will move more slowly through the area, generate extremely high winds (higher than 74 mph) and serious flooding.
Per the New York Times, New York City has shut down their entire transit system (including the subway, buses, and regional trains) and other cities have followed suit. Washington D.C. has already shut down their metro, Boston will be shutting down their transit system at 2pm today, as have other cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Providence.
This storm is no joke. Per CNN “forecasters said Sandy was likely to collide with a cold front and spawn a superstorm that could generate flash floods, snowstorms and massive power outages.” The storm is not set to make landfall until last Monday night or early Tuesday morning (the center is expected to touch down on the southern New Jersey coast).
Contributing to additional flooding concerns is the fact that tides are higher than usual because of the full moon that will occur on Monday night. During a full moon, tides are typically 20% higher than normal, per CBS News, which goes on to say that “a gravitational lag usually causes the highest tides to come a day or two after every full moon.” This means that the worst of the flooding might happen Tuesday or Wednesday.
We urge everyone to stay safe and secure, heading the warnings of the national weather service and local authorities. In the event that the power goes out on a massive scale, what will this mean for other types of communication?
Stay tuned for Disaster Communications…
