New York City goes dark: HuffPo story, including creepy photo

[99th_Monkey]

Superstorm Sandy Live Updates, Photos: Hudson River Flooding, ConEd Outages & More
AP/The Huffington Post | Posted: 10/29/2012 9:40 pm EDT Updated: 10/29/2012 11:35 pm EDT



ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) - Superstorm Sandy slammed into the New Jersey coastline with 80 mph winds Monday night and hurled an unprecedented 13-foot surge of seawater at New York City, threatening its subways and the electrical system that powers Wall Street. At least four deaths were blamed on the storm, and the presidential campaign ground to a halt a week before Election Day.

Sandy knocked out power to at least 3.1 million people, and New York's main utility said large sections of Manhattan had been plunged into darkness by the storm. Water pressed into the island from three sides.

Just before its center reached land, the storm was stripped of hurricane status, but the distinction was purely technical, based on its shape and internal temperature. It still packed hurricane-force wind, and forecasters were careful to say it remained every bit as dangerous to the 50 million people in its path.

As the storm closed in, it smacked the boarded-up big cities of the Northeast corridor — Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston — with stinging rain and gusts of more than 85 mph. It also converged with a cold-weather system that turned it into a superstorm, a monstrous hybrid consisting not only of rain and high wind but snow.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/superstorm-sandy-live-updates-photos_n_2041963.html#slide=1700142

[pipoman]

1. Any looting or other mayhem I wonder?

[99th_Monkey]

2. Rise of the Rats in NYC doesn't look pretty

Hurricane Sandy Could Displace Rats, Spread Infectious Disease
Posted: 10/29/2012 5:59 pm EDT Updated: 10/29/2012 6:17 pm EDT

he 8-million-strong human population of New York City is matched, if not exceeded, by the city's number of rodent dwellers. Fortunately, the two populations don't mingle all that often.

But that could change as storm waters from Hurricane Sandy flood rats out of their underground residences, according to Rick Ostfeld of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Milbrook, N.Y.

"Rats are incredibly good swimmers," said Ostfeld. "And they can climb."

In other words, Sandy is unlikely to knock off the resilient rodents, but rather displace them.

According to Ostfeld, this could result in increased risk of infectious diseases carried by urban rats, including leptospirosis, hantavirus, typhus, salmonella, and even the plague.

"One of things we know can exacerbate disease is massive dispersal," he added. "Rats are highly social individuals and live in a fairly stable social structure. If this storm disturbs that, rats could start infesting areas they never did before."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/hurricane-sandy-flood-rats-disease-new-york_n_2041474.html?ref=topbar