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Hurricane Sandy - LIVE - Impacts


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very true...however the upper east side along the east river had some pretty large tree damage to about 2nd avenue. My car was parked on a lot on 97th st and 1st ave and the east river (along FDR) flooded here to almost 4ft. 150 cars , including mine, totaled.

Ugh, that's awful-- sorry to hear!

I think the damage to the east side was probably more extensive given the winds. Right along the water the gusts right here had to be over 80mph at times.

Also, I haven't checked, but the Upper West Side just seems much higher to me. My Mom lives practically on Riverside Drive, but she's very high above the River. It flooded the park but there's no way it could reach the residential areas.

Re: the winds... The airports measured gusts in the 64-69-kt range, so that's probably a good indicator of what the East Side had.

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So Brian Wiliams tonight says Sandy "had the lowest pressure ever in our hemisphere" - doh! I've seen similar claims elsewhere, no idea how that started.

On the bright side, at least they gave a $50 billion damage estimate, rather than the laughable $20 billion estimate that ABC gave and I've seen all over the place, without attribution.

I'm assuming the $20 billion is just based on some sort of insurance industry software where you plug in "Category 1" and "southern New Jersey" and it spits out an estimate (probably based on a "normal" storm radius) not an actual assessment of damage.

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I talked to my aunt on Long Island. Like my mother in NYC, she was really caught off guard by the severity of the storm-- said the wind was making a "weird sound"-- she had trouble describing it-- and she was scared the windows were going to break during the height of it, at around 8 pm-- said it was definitely the worst 'cane she could remember. She also mentioned that there were constant flashes, which she mistook for lightning (it was most certainly electrical transformers).

She and also my best friend from high school say Long Island is really smashed up-- large trees blocking every road, shingles littering the lawns. My friend went to visit his sister in Huntington Station and he said it seemed every property had lost trees, with some falling onto houses. I'm hearing reports that Huntington flooded very badly.

Of course there's no power or gas anywhere.

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Morning e-mail from Jeff L (HCFCD):

Death toll stands at 55 in the US with 22 in New York City and damage estimates between 40-50 billion dollars.

8.2 million are without power and President Obama has ordered the resources of the federal govt. to help in power restoration where needed.

Gov of NJ: “The damage on the coast is unthinkable and far beyond what any of us expected”

Mayor Seaside Heights NJ: “We need all the help we can get. The city as is it was before Sandy will never be again.”

USGS will be flying coastal imaging aircraft over the next few days with before and after images.

Remains of the circulation of the system will be moving slowly into Canada over the next 48 hours with winds gradually subsiding over the entire region including the Great Lakes. Heavy snows will continue over WV, W MD, and OH for the next 24 hours.

I will be attempting to draft a report on all the wind, surge, rainfall, and snow reports, along with the numerous records the storm set, but much of this is still in the early stages.

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Just to be clear those $50 Billion numbers thrown around include economic losses (which will undoubedly be heavy due to NYC impact) and not just insured losses. I have heard $7-15 Billion for insured losses so far. the high end would result in total losses of $30 Billion+, Third costliest adjusted for inflation behind Katrina and Andrew.Of course they may very well change. I remember Irene went up a fair amount from initial estimates.

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So Brian Wiliams tonight says Sandy "had the lowest pressure ever in our hemisphere" - doh! I've seen similar claims elsewhere, no idea how that started.

On the bright side, at least they gave a $50 billion damage estimate, rather than the laughable $20 billion estimate that ABC gave and I've seen all over the place, without attribution.

I'm assuming the $20 billion is just based on some sort of insurance industry software where you plug in "Category 1" and "southern New Jersey" and it spits out an estimate (probably based on a "normal" storm radius) not an actual assessment of damage.

Well, its far more complex than that, but yea, $20B is the highest range I've seen.

FWIW, without any context (20B insured vs. 40B total) the $50B doesnt mean anything. who pays that $50B? Is it paid, or just value of things lost or ???

At least the insurance industry has a record of payments. Doubt many other entities do.

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80+ homes completely destroyed from the fire that fireman were unable to get to because of the streets being completely flooded and lack of water pressure and inability to even get to the fire hydrants under the water. This was the worst storm to ever hit this area, and I will stick by my words.

I hadn't seen that pic before. Just truly devastating... sad.png

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This handoff didn't work out bad. Maybe in the future NHC should just provide track, intesity and windspeed probabilities and let local offices handle the warnings. I'm not sure how this would work out in Latin American countries it was fine here.

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70+ US deaths and still rising daily as rescuers find more bodies (some of the deaths will be recategorized as "indirect") in such a well-forecasted storm is very significant.

You put millions of people in the risk area and there's going to be some who don't listen the warnings and/or are incapable of reaching a safe area.

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Update from Jeff L (HCFCD):

See below on potential Nor’easter threat for the NE US next week.

The first part of this e-mail will document some of the number associated with Hurricane Sandy, full documentation of the storm surge, rainfall, wind, and snow amounts will take several days and damage numbers will take months. The overall scope of the event and severity of the damage is the worst ever seen on the US east coast and second only to Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf coast.

Some Early Numbers:

· Yesterday the death toll rose sharply from 55 to 98 as numerous fatalities were discovered in Staten Island in still flooded or collapsed homes. There have been 14 fatalities on Staten Island alone and 46 in New York City.

· A very rough estimate indicates that between 50,000 and 250,000 structures may have been inundated with sea water.

· Damage estimates now stand near 50 billion dollars with the highest estimates at 88 billion, which still falls short of Hurricane Katrina’s 108 billion.

· Power remains out to 4.6 million residents down from 8.2 million on Tuesday. Most of lower Manhattan remains without power due to flooding of sub-ground power stations.

· 14 out of 21 NYC subway lines have been returned to service, but the remaining lines have suffered extensive damage from sea water which is still being pumped. Some of the most damaged lines and stations will be out of service for months.

· An estimated 200 million gallons of sea water flooded the “Ground Zero” site. Pumps are removing 20 million gallons of sea water from the site per day.

· In New Jersey, 1300 natural gas leaks were detected on the heavily damaged barrier islands, and crews sent to cap the leaks discovered that many of the lines that were broken when homes were washed away were now buried under 6-8 feet of sand. Due to the extreme risk of explosion, the state ordered the lines to 28,000 structures to the purged with water as a last resort effort to prevent explosions. It is estimated that this move will destroy all the lines and has cut natural gas service to the barrier islands for potentially months.

· In Seaside Heights, NJ only 4 out of 40 rides at the boardwalk survived the storm surge and wave action. Damage is so severe that most of the boardwalk and pier will likely have to be torn down.

Recovery:

· FEMA has deployed 2200 personnel to the 17 affected states with 305,000 liters of water and 185,000 meals in holding locations preparing to be deployed to recovery centers.

· President Obama has order US NAVY ships: USS Wasp, Carter Hall, and Mesa Verde to the New Jersey and Long Island coast to support search and rescues operations and acting as landing locations for USCG, National Guard, and civilian helicopters.

· 11,800 National Guard members are on duty in the affects states.

· The American Red Cross is housing 9,000 residents in 171 shelters in 13 states. 1700 ARC workers have been deployed with 25,000 meals and 230,000 MRE’s.

Top 5 Most Costliest US Hurricanes:

1) Katrina (108B)

2) Sandy (50B)

3) Ike (29.5B)

4) Andrew (26.5B)

5) Wilma (21 B )

Nor’easter Threat

The upper air pattern over the US will continue with troughing over the eastern US and ridging over the west. A strong short wave will travel from the NW US into the base of the eastern US trough and help along the formation of surface low pressure over the SE US or along the SE US coast late this weekend/early next week. The upper level pattern is favorable for this trough to encourage the deepening of this surface low into a coastal storm as it passes very near the North Carolina coast and then moves NNE toward New England toward the middle of next week. The ECMWF and GFS models are in fairly decent agreement on the track of this system and impacts would be felt over the mid-Atlantic and NE US.

It is still several days away, and forecast models are not showing an overly strong storm system, but even a mild storm will only delay ongoing recovery operations. Current forecast suggest increasing winds and rains over the Sandy impact region by Tuesday with potential for winds of 30-50mph by Wednesday as the coastal storm moves across the nearshore coastal waters. Onshore winds will direct wave action back toward the coast and with dune protection completely destroyed, some coastal overwash will be possible. Structures heavily damaged or near the point of collapse may not survive addition wave action and beach erosion.

Much colder air will be in place with this storm and rain may transition to frozen precipitation over the higher terrain of the NE and mid-Atlantic states. Gusty winds will likely delay power restoration and may cause additional power outages due to the fragile conditions of the above ground lines and weakened vegetation in the region.

The threat and impacts will be fine tuned over the next few days.

NOAA Response Images: Mapping application of aircraft images for the entire New Jersey coast. Long Island is underway. These images will be used to determine before and after coastal change:

http://storms.ngs.no...v/storms/sandy/

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Kind of related note on Sandy. I have lived in PA for 8 years and never seen a black bear within 20 miles of my house. Got a call from the neighbor yesterday informing me that we have a very large black bear in our yard. Its pretty clear that Sandy had wide ranging impacts to wildlife far from the coast as well. My guess is that the bear was forced out of the mountains prior to hibernation by the snowfall there.

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Do you know where he heard the $88 billion figure? I can't find anything close to that.

At risk figure, not an estimate on actual losses from my quick google research. 20 billion insured loss seams to be the general ball park atm.

Approximate total value of residential properties by coastal Mid-Atlantic states, according to CoreLogic:

Massachusetts — $7.8 billion

Pennsylvania — $24.1 million

New York — $35.1 billion

New Jersey — $22.6 billion

Delaware — $2 billion

Maryland — $9 billion

Virginia — $11.3 billion

http://www.insurance...re-31256-1.html

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Does anyone have statistics regarding the costliest non-tropical cyclones in American history? My guess is that Sandy would be #1 (as preliminary data suggest the NHC will keep ET status at NJ landfall).

Discounting tornado outbreaks, I would tend to think the 1993 Superstorm would be the costliest extratropical system in US history.

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Probably to avoid the math involved...lol...i.e. dumb it down. $50 Billion is about what Andrew adjusted is IIRC.

I think Miami 1926 is #1 when using those values.. been a while since I've seen them tho.

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