Sandy swamps coast, cuts power to 700,000

Hurricane Sandy churned its destructive path toward the Northeast on Monday, flooding beach towns and tearing up beaches, piers and boardwalks ahead of its expected landfall in New Jersey.

Some 700,000 homes and businesses had already lost power, while schools, offices, roads and transit systems shut down across an area of 50 million people. Hundreds of thousands earlier sought shelter on higher ground.

"This is going to be a slow-moving process through a wide swath of the country and millions are going to be affected," President Barack Obama said Monday after being briefed on Sandy.

The storm's maximum sustained winds were 90 miles per hour and its center was 170 miles southeast of New York City, according to the National Hurricane Center's 2 p.m. ET update. Sandy's wind speed has increased 15 mph since 11 p.m. ET Sunday.

Landfall was moved up to early evening along southern New Jersey's coast after Sandy, which had been moving toward the coast at 18 mph, sped up to 28 mph.

The storm is bringing a storm surge as high as 11 feet to coastal towns and cities from Delaware through Connecticut.

With hurricane-force winds extending 175 miles from its center, Sandy is as broad as any hurricane to ever threaten the U.S.

Some have not heeded orders to evacuate.

"When we evacuated last time (for last year's Hurricane Irene), it actually was worse off where we evacuated to," Amy Chamblis told NBC News of her situation in lower Manhattan.

By early afternoon gusts over 70 mph were recorded across the region. In New York City, a crane atop a high-rise building under construction toppled over and was dangling over the side. Nearby offices and streets were evacuated as a precaution.

"It is going downhill fast with these winds," the Weather Channel?s Mike Seidel told MSNBC from Point Pleasant, N.J. "It?s only going to get worse."

Weather Channel coverage of Sandy

"It's the worst possible time," NBC News meteorologist Al Roker said of the fact Sandy was due to come ashore during a full moon, which could lead to record flooding. "We're not even at the highest of high tides and we've lost about 150 feet of beach."

"This will be worse than Irene" last year in terms of storm surge, he predicted.

"A lot of people are going to go out on Tuesday and Wednesday and not find the beach they are used to seeing," added Alan Blumberg, a beach erosion expert at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J.

"The duration of the storm, the offshore waves, and the storm surge itself ... are way, way over the top what we?ve seen in the past," he told the Weather Channel.

Although Sandy was still hours from landfall, flooding was already reported in many coastal areas. Among them:

• Much of Fire Island, N.Y., was under 18 inches of water, NBCNewYork.com reported.
• In Freeport, N.Y., a surge along a boating canal pushed docks onto lawns, matching the damage done last year Irene.
• Floodwaters poured through an evacuated Atlantic City, N.J., NBCPhiladelphia.com reported, and a section of boardwalk was torn away.
• Numerous roads in Virginia and North Carolina were flooded, NBC station WAVY-TV reported.

In addition, some 700,000 customers across the Northeast were without power, according to Reuters, 115,000 of them on Long Island.

Out at sea, two people were feared missing after they and 14 others abandoned a replica of the HMS Bounty that was adrift 90 miles southeast of Hatteras N.C. The vessel, used in the 1962 movie "Mutiny on the Bounty" with Marlon Brando, later sank in 18-foot seas.

Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for hundreds of thousands of residents in low-lying areas. And states of emergency were declared across the region ahead of Sandy, which will collide with arctic air and a storm moving in from the west to create windy, wet conditions far inland.

"First will be the coastal impact, then winds knocking out power, then heavy rain where we may get flash flooding but in some cases we may not get river flooding for several days," Craig Fugate, administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told NBC. "We?re not expecting the winds inland to be that damaging to homes but we do think trees are going to get impacted and that will be the biggest problem, knocking down the power grid."

Stu Ostro, a Weather Channel meteorologist, warned Sandy would "occupy a place in the annals of weather history as one of the most extraordinary to have affected the United States."

Forecasters said the super-storm could bring close to a foot of rain in some regions, a potentially lethal storm surge across much of the coastline, and punishing winds that could cause widespread power outages that last for days.

Snow started falling early Monday in West Virginia, which could see up to 2 feet.

Video: FEMA chief: Inland damage is a real concern (on this page)

"The size of this alone, affecting a heavily populated area, is going to be history-making," said Jeff Masters, a hurricane specialist for Weather Underground.

U.S. stock exchanges will not be trading on Monday or Tuesday. In Washington, D.C., federal offices closed Monday, and federal courts in affected areas announced they would be shuttered.

Workers on Sunday night began shutting down New York City's subway, bus and commuter railroads. The city's Holland and Brooklyn-Battery tunnels were shut down at 2 p.m. ET Monday.

In New Jersey, bus, rail and light rail services were gradually shut down starting Sunday afternoon.

Sandy was disrupting travel across the region. Thousands of flights have been canceled so far, according to FlightAware.com. Rail traffic also was impacted, with Amtrak canceling all of its northeast corridor service in addition to some other lines.

BreakingNews.com's coverage of Sandy

In lower Manhattan, Costa Kalorides, 43, was on his way to work not far from the water's edge. After living a decade in Florida, he said, Sandy didn't dissuade him.

"This is nothing. There's been worse days," said Kalorides, who carried provisions of instant soup and soda in a plastic bag but wore no rain gear. "I don't believe in letting the weather dictate life."

Share your images of Hurricane Sandy

Although Sandy is not forecast to be as destructive as Hurricane Irene in August 2011, which left $4 billion in damage, it holds the potential to cause significant damage because it will be moving slowly.

Power outages, expected to affect millions of residents and businesses, could continue through the presidential election, NBC meteorologist Bill Karins warned. "After the storm hits, expect the cleanup and power outage restoration to continue right up through Election Day," Karins said.

Before it made its way north, Sandy was blamed for the deaths of 65 people in the Caribbean.

More Hurricane Sandy coverage:

NBC News staff, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49593609/ns/weather/

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