Governor in US storm state still has no power at home

NEW YORK - New Jersey state governor Chris Christie, who is touted as a possible future Republican presidential contender, said Sunday he still has no electricity at home nearly one week after superstorm Sandy.

"I still don't have power in my house," Christie told a news conference about his efforts to get his northeast state moving again. "I am not happy, my wife is not happy."

Almost one million people in the state are still without power but Christie appealed for patience, highlighting how 1.8 million had been brought back on line since the storm last Monday.

He said that New Jersey will allow votes by email in Tuesday's presidential, congressional, and local elections for some people.

"I am allowing them to vote by email and fax," he said. "But this is only for people displaced by the storm."

Christie said he did not expect major problems on voting day.

source: interaksyon.com

AT&T, T-Mobile share networks to help Sandy victims

(CNN) -- Getting cell phone reception in waterlogged New York and New Jersey could get a bit easier.

In a rare moment of collaboration, wireless providers AT&T and T-Mobile have agreed to share networks in the challenging days following Superstorm Sandy, allowing customers to use whichever network gets coverage in their areas.

The combining of networks will happen entirely behind the scenes, so all customers need to do is dial out. They'll automatically be routed over whatever network is currently the strongest in their location.

There will be no roaming charges for customers of either company, and no need to change any settings, rate plan or service agreements.

Making calls across the Northeast has been difficult following Sandy, and New York and New Jersey seem to be the hardest hit. According to the Federal Communication Commission, about a quarter of cell phone towers in the 10 states were knocked out by the storm.

Repairing these towers will take several days or longer, and continued inclement weather could cause additional issues and repair delays. Some transmission sites that are still working are currently running on backup generators, which carriers hope will last until power is restored.

"Our assumption is that communications outages could get worse before they get better, particularly for mobile," FCC chairman Julius Genachowski said on a call with reporters Tuesday.

Only a very small number of 911 call centers had lost power, and those calls were being rerouted to working centers, according to the FCC.

The major cellphone carriers have shared varying amounts of information on their service outages following Sandy. Sprint said it was experiencing "service impacts," but that it could not provide a specific number for the amount of people without service. T-Mobile said that in New York CIty, 20% of its network was down. In Washington that number was 10%.

Verizon's New York City facilities were severely flooded, and the damages were still being assessed. The carrier said its networks were mostly doing well, but there were serious problems in lower Manhattan and general problems throughout New York City. The company did not give exact numbers for outages.

Verizon officials also cautioned that some customers in the Northeast might receive "all circuits are busy" messages when trying to make calls because of an unusually large volume of post-Sandy demand on the network.

AT&T was the most vague, only saying that it was monitoring its land line and wireless networks and working to restore service.

T-Mobile and AT&T did not give a timeline for how long this cross-company cooperation would last.

In a related act of corporate generosity, Comcast said it will offer free Wi-Fi to users in areas affected by Sandy, according to CNET.

source: CNN

World shares gain as U.S. storm damage seen limited

LONDON - World shares rose modestly while the dollar weakened on Tuesday as the initial impact of a massive storm in the United States looked to have been less severe than feared.

The greenback was also knocked by a resurgent yen after the Bank of Japan disappointed many investors by easing policy less aggressively than had been hoped after a slump in factory output and exports during September.

However, activity was subdued everywhere since U.S. share and bond markets were closed on Tuesday as one of the biggest storms to hit the country, codenamed Sandy, left large areas of New York City without power or public transport.

The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was up 0.75 percent at 1,101.90 points and, after gains earlier in Asia, the MSCI world equity index had risen 0.3 percent to 328.88 points.

U.S. stock index futures, which kept trading in Europe, edged lower but volumes were very light. .N

Strategists said it was too early to tell what impact the destruction caused by Sandy might have on markets.

"Volumes are very low with Wall Street (closed), which makes today's gains quite fragile, and the potential impact of the storm for the insurance sector, estimated at around $20 billion, has not been priced in yet," said Patrice Perois, trader at Kepler Capital Markets in Paris.

Demand for the dollar and U.S. bonds tends to rise in times of reduced appetite to take on risk, but if widespread damage prompts speculation the U.S. Federal Reserve could ease monetary policy further to shore up the economy, they could fall back.

Across European stock markets' attention was on corporate earnings with results from well known names like Deutsche Bank, Swiss banking giant UBS and oil major BP lifting prices. UBS shares leapt over four percent as it confirmed a plan to cut 10,000 jobs.

Britain's FTSE 100 index was up 0.8 percent, Germany's DAX index up 0.9 percent and Switzerland's SMI index up 0.5 percent.

Modest BOJ move

In currency markets, the yen rose broadly after a new plan from the Bank of Japan to increase its asset purchases by 11 trillion yen ($138 billion) disappointed some market players who had positioned for a more aggressive increase.

"It was a very skeptical response to the BOJ policy meeting, made worse by the fact they have revised lower the growth and inflation outlook," said Jane Foley, senior currency strategist at Rabobank. "That has seen the yen unwind a lot of the softer tone we saw going into this meeting."

The dollar hit a one-week low of 79.28 yen and was down 0.3 percent against a basket of major currencies at 79.67 points.

The weaker dollar helped the European common currency climb 0.4 percent to $1.2958, with lower yields on Spanish and Italian bonds adding to the better mood.

But gains for the euro are still expected to be limited by continuing questions over whether Greece can agree a deal with its creditors, and when Spain might request financial aid.

Spain fell deeper into recession in the third quarter and prices rose sharply in October, according to new data, keeping pressure on the government to take some action as the prospect of further civil unrest grows.

"Spain's economy is suffering terribly, which will continue to hit government revenues, and a modest decline in bond yields will not solve the problem," said Kit Juckes, strategist at Societe Generale.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has maintained an ambivalent stance towards applying for a politically embarrassing rescue that would kickstart an ECB bond-buying programme and ease financing costs.

Investors, too, seem willing to wait; 10-year Spanish bond yields were little changed at 5.66 percent.

German government bonds, the benchmark of European fixed-income markets, were also mostly flat.

Italy was even able to sell 7 billion euros of new five- and 10-year government bonds at its lowest cost since May 2011.

Italian 10-year yields were 3 basis points lower on the day at 4.98 percent, having risen about 25 basis points in the last two weeks.

Oil floats

In oil markets, prices were edging higher as traders awaited news of the damage inflicted by Sandy on refineries and pipelines, although weaker demand from the storm-hit region capped gains.

Brent crude for December rose 13 cents to $109.57 a barrel, recovering from a fall to $108.75 earlier, while U.S. crude for December was up 40 cents at $85.94.

U.S. gasoline futures were little changed at $2.7530 a gallon, after climbing more than 5 cents on Monday on expectations of tighter supply.

"People are just holding back a little bit to see if there's any real damage and impact, and at the moment it's too hard to see," said Bjarne Schieldrop, an analyst at SEB in Oslo.

source: interaksyon.com

Sandy wreaks havoc across Northeast; at least 11 dead

(CNN) -- Though no longer a hurricane, "post-tropical" superstorm Sandy packed a hurricane-sized punch as it slammed into the Jersey Shore on Monday, killing at least 11 people from West Virginia to North Carolina and Connecticut.

Sandy whipped torrents of water over the streets of Atlantic City, stretching for blocks inland and ripping up part of the vacation spot's fabled boardwalk. The storm surge set records in Lower Manhattan, where flooded substations caused a widespread power outage. It swamped beachfronts on both sides of Long Island Sound and delivered hurricane-force winds from Virginia to Cape Cod as it came ashore.

Sandy's wrath also prompted the evacuation of about 200 patients at NYU Langone Medical Center.

"We are having intermittent telephone access issues, and for this reason the receiving hospital will notify the families of their arrival," spokeswoman Lisa Greiner said.

In addition, the basement of New York's Bellevue Hospital Center flooded, and the hospital was running off of emergency backup power. Ian Michaels of the Office of Emergency Management said the main priority is to help secure additional power and obtain additional fuel and pumps for the hospital.

The storm hit near Atlantic City about 8 p.m. ET, the National Hurricane Center reported. It packed 80-mph winds at landfall, down from the 90 mph clocked earlier Monday.

Superstorm Sandy's wrath

"I've been down here for about 16 years, and it's shocking what I'm looking at now. It's unbelievable," said Montgomery Dahm, owner of the Tun Tavern in Atlantic City, which stayed open as Sandy neared the Jersey Shore. "I mean, there's cars that are just completely underwater in some of the places I would never believe that there would be water."

Dahm's family cleared out of Atlantic City before the storm hit, but he says he stayed put to serve emergency personnel. At nightfall Monday, he said the water was lapping at the steps of his restaurant, where a generator was keeping the lights on.


The storm had already knocked down power lines and tree limbs while still 50 miles offshore and washed out a section of the boardwalk on the north end of town, Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford told CNN. He said there were still "too many people" who didn't heed instructions to evacuate, and he urged anyone still in town to "hunker down and try to wait this thing out."

"When Mother Nature sends her wrath your way, we're at her mercy, and so all we can do is stay prayerful and do the best that we can," Langford said.

And in Seaside Heights, about 30 miles north of Atlantic City, Police Chief Thomas Boyd told CNN, "The whole north side of my town is totally under water."




In New York, lower Manhattan's Battery Park recorded nearly 14-foot tide, smashing a record set by 1960's Hurricane Donna by more than 3 feet. The city had already halted service on its bus and train lines, closing schools and ordering about 400,000 people out of their homes in low-lying areas of Manhattan and elsewhere.

Flooding forced the closure of all three of the major airports in the area, LaGuardia, John F. Kennedy and Newark Liberty. Water seeped into subway stations in Lower Manhattan and into the tunnel connecting Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, while high winds damaged a crane perched atop a Midtown skyscraper under construction, forcing authorities to evacuate the surrounding area.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters there was an "extraordinary" amount of water in Lower Manhattan, as well as downed trees throughout the city and widespread power outages.

"We knew that this was going to be a very dangerous storm, and the storm has met our expectations," he said. "The worst of the weather has come, and city certainly is feeling the impacts."

The storm was blamed for more than 2.8 million outages across the Northeast. About 350,000 of them were in the New York city area, where utility provider Con Edison reported it had also cut power to customers in parts of Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan to protect underground equipment as the storm waters rose.

But as water crept into its substations, Con Ed said it had lost service to about 250,000 customers in Manhattan -- including most of the island south of 39th Street.

Five things to know about Sandy

At least five people had been killed in storm-related incidents in New York state, including three killed by trees falling on homes in Queens and in the town of New Salem, near Albany, city and state officials said. Falling trees were also blamed for three deaths reported in New Jersey and one in Connecticut, authorities there told CNN.

In West Virginia, a woman was killed in a car accident after the storm dumped 5 inches of snow on the town of Davis, said Amy Shuler Goodwin, a spokeswoman for Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin's office.


And before hitting land, it overwhelmed the sailing ship HMS Bounty, a replica of the historic British vessel, off North Carolina. Fourteen of the ship's crew of 16 were rescued, but the body of one deckhand was found Monday evening and the ship's captain was still missing Monday night, the Coast Guard said.

Sandy had already claimed at least 67 lives in the Caribbean, including 51 in Haiti.

Sandy's storm surges were boosted by a full moon, which already brings the highest tides of the month. And forecasters said the storm was likely to collide with a cold front and spawn a superstorm that could generate flash floods and snowstorms.

"It could be bad," said U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Steven Rattior, "or it could be devastation."

Mass transit shut down across the densely populated Northeast, landmarks stood empty and schools and government offices were closed. The National Grid, which provides power to millions of customers, said 60 million people could be affected before it's over.

On Fire Island, off Long Island, the water rose above promenades and docks on Monday afternoon, homeowner Karen Boss said. Boss stayed on the island with her husband despite a mandatory evacuation order. She said they own several properties and a business there and had weathered previous storms.

"I'm concerned that it might come into the first floor," she said. "If that's the case, I'll just move into another house that's higher up."

Based on pressure readings, it's likely to be the strongest storm to make landfall north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, CNN senior meteorologist Dave Hennen said. The benchmark storm, the 1938 "Long Island Express" Hurricane, contained a low pressure reading of 946 millibars; Sandy had a minimum pressure of 943 millibars. Generally speaking, the lower the pressure, the stronger the storm.

In Sea Bright, New Jersey, Yvette Cafaro scrawled a plea on the plywood that covered her burger restaurant: "Be kind to us Sandy." The seaside area largely dodged last year's Hurricane Irene, but Cafaro was not optimistic that Sea Bright would be spared Sandy.


"Everything that we've been watching on the news looks like this one will really get us," she said. "We're definitely worried about it."




Its arrival, eight days before the U.S. presidential election, forced President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, to alter or cancel several campaign stops. Obama flew back to Washington from Florida, telling reporters at the White House that assets were in place for an effective response to the storm.

"The most important message I have for the public right now is please listen to what your state and local officials are saying," Obama said. "When they tell you to evacuate, you need to evacuate."

And in Ohio, Romney asked supporters to drop off items and cash at his "victory centers" to be donated to victims of the storm.

"There are families in harm's way that will be hurt -- either in their possessions or perhaps in something more severe," Romney said.




By Monday afternoon, 23 states were under a warning or advisory for wind related to Sandy. Thousands of flights had been canceled, and hundreds of roads and highways were expected to flood. And according to a government model, Sandy's wind damage alone could cause more than $7 billion in economic loss.

Sandy was expected to weaken once it moves inland, but the center was expected to move slowly northward, meaning gusty winds and heavy rain would continue through Wednesday.

On the western side of the storm, the mountains of West Virginia expected up to 3 feet of snow and the mountains of southwestern Virginia to the Kentucky state line could see up to 2 feet. Twelve to 18 inches of snow were expected in the mountains near the North Carolina-Tennessee border.

"This is not a typical storm," said Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett. "Essentially, this is a hurricane wrapped in a 'nor'easter.'"

source: CNN

Hurricane Sandy strengthens as it nears US East Coast

NEW YORK - Hurricane Sandy, the monster storm bearing down on the East Coast, strengthened on Monday after hundreds of thousands moved to higher ground, public transport shut down and the stock market suffered its first weather-related closure in 27 years.

About 50 million people from the Mid-Atlantic to Canada were in the path of the nearly 1,000-mile-wide (1,600-km-wide) storm, which forecasters said could be the largest to hit the mainland in US history. It was expected to topple trees, damage buildings, cause power outages and trigger heavy flooding.

The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Monday the Category 1 storm had strengthened as it turned toward the coast and was moving at 20 miles per hour (32 km per hour). It was expected to bring a "life-threatening storm surge," coastal hurricane winds and heavy snow in the Appalachian Mountains, the NHC said.

Nine US states have declared states of emergency, and with the US election eight days away President Barack Obama canceled a campaign event in Florida on Monday in order to return to Washington and monitor the US government's response to the storm.

"This is a serious and big storm," Obama said on Sunday after a briefing at the federal government's storm response center in Washington. "We don't yet know where it's going to hit, where we're going to see the biggest impacts."

Sandy killed 66 people in the Caribbean last week before pounding US coastal areas with rain and triggering snow falls at higher elevations as it moved north.

Forecasting services indicated early Monday the center of the storm would strike the New Jersey shore near Atlantic City on Monday night. While Sandy does not pack the punch of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, it could become more potent as it approaches the US coast.

Winds were at a maximum of 85 mph, the NHC said in its 8 a.m. (1200 GMT) report, up from 75 mph six hours earlier. It said tropical storm-force winds reached as far as 485 miles from the center.

Seventeen people from the replica HMS Bounty abandoned ship while stranded at sea off North Carolina in the path of the hurricane, roughly 160 miles from the center of storm, the US Coast Guard said on Monday.

"The 17-person crew donned cold water survival suits and lifejackets before launching in two 25-man lifeboats with canopies," the Coast Guard said, adding it was determining which aircraft or vessel was best-placed to launch a rescue.

The three-masted tall ship was built for the 1962 movie "Mutiny on the Bounty."

New York and other cities and towns closed their transit systems and ordered mass evacuations from low-lying areas ahead of a storm surge that could reach as high as 11 feet.

All US stock markets will be closed on Monday and possibly Tuesday, the operator of the New York Stock Exchange said late on Sunday, reversing an earlier plan that would have kept electronic trading going on Monday.

The United Nations, Broadway theaters, New Jersey casinos, schools up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and myriad corporate events were also being shut down.

'Don't be stupid'

Officials ordered people in coastal towns and low-lying areas to evacuate, often telling them they would put emergency workers' lives at risk if they stayed.

"Don't be stupid, get out, and go to higher, safer ground," New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told a news conference.

Forecasters said Sandy was a rare, hybrid "super storm" created by an Arctic jet stream wrapping itself around a tropical storm, possibly causing up to 12 inches of rain in some areas, as well as up to 3 feet (1 meter) of snowfall in the Appalachian Mountains from West Virginia to Kentucky.

At 8 a.m. (1200 GMT), the NHC said Sandy was centered about 265 miles southeast of Atlantic City and about 310 miles south-southeast of New York City.

Worried residents in the hurricane's path packed stores, searching for generators, flashlights, batteries, food and other supplies in anticipation of power outages. Nearly 284,000 residential properties valued at $88 billion are at risk for damage, risk analysts at CoreLogic said.

Transportation systems shut down in anticipation. Airlines canceled flights, bridges and tunnels closed, and national passenger rail operator Amtrak suspended nearly all service on the East Coast. The US government told non-emergency workers in Washington, D.C., to stay home.

Utilities from the Carolinas to Maine reported late Sunday that a combined 14,000 customers were already without power.

The second-largest oil refinery on the East Coast, Phillips 66's 238,000 barrel per day (bpd) Bayway plant in Linden, New Jersey, was shutting down and three other plants cut output as the storm affected operations at two-thirds of the region's plants.

Oil prices slipped on Monday, with Brent near $109 a barrel. "With refineries cutting runs, we're likely to see a build-up in crude stocks which could be driving bearish prices at the moment," said Michael Creed, an economist at National Australia Bank in Melbourne.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered the evacuation of some 375,000 people from low-lying areas of the city, from upscale parts of lower Manhattan to waterfront housing projects in the outer boroughs.

While Sandy's 85 mph winds were not overwhelming for a hurricane, its exceptional size means the winds will last as long as two days.

"This is not a typical storm," Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett said. "It could very well be historic in nature and in scope." (Additional reporting by John McCrank, Edith Honan, Caroline Humer, Paul Thomasch and Janet McGurty in New York; Barbara Goldberg in New Jersey; Gene Cherry in North Carolina; Dave Warner in Philadelphia; Tom Hals in Milford, Delaware; Mary Ellen Clark and Ebong Udoma in Connecticut; Matt Spetalnick in Washington)

source: interaksyon.com