Via The National Post: Hurricane Sandy: U.S. prepares for the worst; Storm could soak Ontario. Excerpt:
Ontario may see the worst of Sandy when it hits early next week as the so-called Frankenstorm continues to grow, the Canadian Hurricane Centre said Saturday.
Meanwhile, tens of millions of people in the eastern third of the U.S. in the path of the unprecedented freak storm had hours Sunday to prepare for the first raindrops that were expected later in the day, to be followed over the next few days by sheets of rain, high winds and even heavy snow.
The warning from officials to anyone who might be affected was simple: Be prepared and get out of the way.
•Sandy was at Category 1 strength, packing 75 mph winds, about 250 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., and moving northeast at 14 mph as of 11 a.m. Sunday, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. It was about 575 miles south of New York City.
•Hurricane Sandy was headed north from the Caribbean, where it left nearly 60 people dead, to meet a winter storm and a cold front, plus high tides from a full moon. Experts said the rare hybrid storm that results will cause havoc over 800 miles from the East Coast to the Great Lakes.
•States of emergency were declared from North Carolina, where gusty winds whipped steady rain on Sunday morning, to Connecticut. Delaware ordered mandatory evacuations for coastal communities by 8 p.m. Sunday.
•New York City’s subways, buses and suburban trains will be shut down Sunday night ahead of the storm.
•The storm was expected to continue moving parallel to the Southeast coast most of the day and approach the coast of the mid-Atlantic states by Monday night, before reaching southern New England later in the week.
•Amtrak began canceling train service Saturday night to parts of the East Coast, including between Washington and New York. Airlines started adding Sunday flights out of New York and Washington in preparation for flight cancellations on Monday.
•Southern and eastern Ontario could see between 50 and 100 millimetres late Monday and early Tuesday.
