By Lindy Washburn and Melissa Hayes, The Record (Hackensack, N.J.) –
HACKENSACK, N.J.—Like a nor’easter on steroids, Hurricane Sandy was set to pummel North Jersey with wind and rain Sunday afternoon in advance of its predicted landfall Monday night on the Jersey Shore or farther south, forecasters said.
Gov. Chris Christie declared a state of emergency Saturday even before the storm’s arrival, as the state’s largest utility predicted as many as a million customers could go without power for days. Christie ordered barrier islands from Sandy Hook to Cape May evacuated by 4 p.m. today, and took steps Saturday night to prepare for a total shutdown of NJ Transit. Even the Atlantic City casinos are to close this afternoon.
“We have to be prepared for the worst here,” Christie said outside a fire station in Monmouth County after a morning meeting with his Cabinet. “We should not underestimate the impact of the storm and we should not assume the predictions will be wrong.”
The full impact of the storm is expected to hit during the day Monday, with winds gusting to hurricane strength over a wide area.
But the timing of the storm’s arrival — quite possibly at high tide during a full moon — was expected to result in storm surges of 4 to 8 feet along the Atlantic coast from Maryland to Connecticut on Monday night, said Rick Knabb, director of the National Hurricane Center. “We just can’t pinpoint who will get the worst of that.”
High tide in New York Harbor is at 9 p.m. Monday. Areas along the lower Hackensack and Passaic rivers — places like Hackensack, Little Ferry and Paterson — could see tidal flooding cresting as much as 6 1/2 feet above high tide if the storm’s surge comes then, said Philip Orton of the Stevens Institute of Technology Storm Surge Warning System. That would break an 80-year record, he said.
But subtle changes could delay the storm’s arrival, perhaps until low tide when the damage would be less, forecasters said.
At supermarkets and hardware stores, shoppers laid in supplies as if the apocalypse were at hand. Generators and sump pumps were sold out at some Home Depots and Sears, and a Ridgewood store limited the amount of bottled water per customer. The governor issued a stern warning against price-gouging during the emergency, promising to prosecute merchants who set prices more than 10 percent above non-storm rates.
Conditions in North Jersey “will start going downhill in a big-time way” tonight, said Mark Paquette, a meteorologist with Accuweather. “The worst of the weather is going to be before the storm center gets ashore,” he said.
Christie urged people to get off the roads as soon as this afternoon. “It’s not worth the risk to go out,” he said. “Unless it’s an emergency, I’d ask you to please stay off the roads.”
The state suspended tolls on the Garden State Parkway northbound as far as the Driscoll Bridge and the westbound Atlantic City Expressway. A final decision on whether to shut down the NJ Transit system had not yet been made, and preparations for the 12-hour process were undertaken as a precaution, the governor’s office said.
The rare collision of a hurricane, an eastward moving storm system from the Midwest and polar air from Canada was expected to affect 60 million people in the eastern third of the United States. It even produced an unusual “snow dog” rainbow, a result of snow in the upper atmosphere, above the home of Bob Ziff of the North Jersey Weather Observers. Confounded forecasters dubbed the converging storms “FrankenStorm.”
“Prepare for a variety of hazards,” said Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Administration, in an afternoon conference call. “It’s a dynamic, changing situation.”
Unlike a conventional hurricane, this one will go well inland and hover for several days, he said, with “heavy rainfall and river flooding. This is not a coastal threat alone.”
In North Jersey, some predicted the storm would be known more for its gales than its floods. Meteorologist Mark Paquette of Accuweather said the storm’s track put North Jersey in line for its strongest winds, which occur along the eastern and northeastern edges of its counterclockwise circulation. That means tropical-storm winds — up to 74 miles an hour — will be common, with gusts beyond that.
The major concern is power outages caused by downed trees and limbs rather than structural damage, Fugate said.
North Jersey forecasters predicted up to 5 inches of rain by Thursday. Some streams may flood, but rivers are expected to absorb the extra precipitation, said Dwane Razzetti, coordinator of the Bergen County Office of Emergency Management.
Speaking of the changing forecast, he said, “Yesterday, we saw this more as a flooding event. Today it’s much more of a wind-hazard event.”
The Passaic River is lower than it was last year during Hurricane Irene, leading Christie to say he hoped that would help mitigate flooding upstream. United Water is lowering the levels in its reservoirs and the state lowered Pompton Lake on Saturday.
The storm will linger, with some rain and wind — more a nuisance than a major problem — through Wednesday, Paquette said.
Power outages could last seven to 10 days, the governor said.
PSE&G has called in about 1,000 utility workers and contractors from Texas, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Florida, Missouri and Quebec, but they will not be dispatched in severe weather, Christie said.
The American Red Cross also has 400 additional disaster responders on hand and is prepared to open shelters, with 95 emergency vehicles en route to potentially affected areas on the East Coast.
