Debris from Sandy covered roads and sidewalks. Sandy was the perfect storm. It made landfall during a full moon and high tide, and this maximized its destructive, coastal flooding potential. The storm surge reached a record of 13 feet.
From beginning to end, Hurricane Sandy progression caused deadly flooding, mudslides, and destructive winds from the Caribbean to the United States East Coast. In the nine days that Sandy raged it killed a total of around 220 people.
Hurricane Sandy shut down Wall Street and disrupted business activity throughout the populous Northeast but it's not expected to have a significant impact on the nation's economic growth. Eqecat, which does catastrophic risk models, projects $10 billion to $20 billion in total economic damages, about half insured.
Sandy wasn't getting its energy from warm water below like a normal hurricane, but being fueled from above. The size was "one of the biggest factors in the unusually large amount of surge in the New Jersey and New York coastline," said Jamie Rhome, the hurricane center's chief for storm surge.
October 25, 2012: Hurricane Sandy makes landfall in Cuba as a Category 2 hurricane with 105 mph winds, then travels to Haiti and the Bahamas, killing 54 people in Haiti, 11 people in the Dominican Republic, and two people in the Bahamas.
In Cuba, there was extensive coastal flooding and wind damage inland after Hurricaine Sandy in October 2012, destroying some 15,000 homes, killing 11, and causing $2 billion (2012 USD) in damage. Caritas has asked by the government to help repair roofs.
How did Sandy form? On October 22, 2012, a tropical depression formed off the northeast coast of Nicaragua in the Caribbean Sea. Two days later, it strengthened and officially became a Category 1 hurricane as it moved northeast.
In the United States, Hurricane Sandy affected 24 states, including the entire eastern seaboard from Florida to Maine and west across the Appalachian Mountains to Michigan and Wisconsin, with particularly severe damage in New Jersey and New York.
Gilbert was formed on September 8, 1988 and made first landfall on the east coast of Jamaica on Monday, September 12, at 10 a.m. It ended up peaking at Category 5 strength when it left Jamaica.
The total death toll reached 285, including at least 125 deaths in the United States. The hurricane caused close to $62 billion in damage in the United States and at least $315 million in the Caribbean. Hurricane Sandy is the nation's most expensive storm since Hurricane Katrina, which caused $128 billion in damage.
On October 29 2012 at 12:30 pm, Hurricane Sandy made a turn toward the coast of New Jersey. Then at 8 pm the center of the storm came ashore around Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Effects of Hurricane Sandy in New York
| Category 1 hurricane (SSHWS/NWS) |
|---|
| Satellite image of Sandy at 4:15 p.m. EDT on October 29 as it was about to make landfall on the Jersey Shore |
|---|
| Highest winds | 1-minute sustained: 80 mph (130 km/h) Gusts: 100 mph (155 km/h) |
| Lowest pressure | 945 mbar (hPa); 27.91 inHg |
| Fatalities | 53 total |
WHY THE LEFT TURN? It takes an unusual weather pattern to cause an unusual storm track. The key to that pattern (shown below) was a massive HIGH pressure in the North Atlantic, near Greenland. It helped create a "block" that prevented Sandy from going out to sea, or even continuing northward.
While Ida caused some of the worst flooding Staten Island has seen in years, it is not the first time the borough has endured significant weather events like hurricanes, tropical storms and nor'easters.
Wind gusts of more than 70 mph were reported along the coast, according to the National Weather Service. One of the hardest hit areas was Atlantic City, where an 80-foot section of the world-renowned boardwalk near Atlantic Avenue was destroyed and water stretched for blocks inland.
