Sandy hits Virginia coast, many areas submerged

NEW YORK: Hurricane Sandy has finally hit the Virginia coast submerging many low-lying areas according to the latest report received here, Geo News reported.

Three major public transportation systems in three big cities -- New York, Washington and Philadelphia -- will be closed as Hurricane Sandy threatens the East Coast.

Close to 11 million commuters will be without service.

The New York Stock Exchange will close its trading floor Monday as Hurricane Sandy barrels its way up the Northeast, but Big Board trading will continue electronically. NYSE Euronext said Sunday it is putting in place its contingency plans beginning Monday and will announce later when the trading floor will reopen.

The New York Mercantile Exchange, a commodity futures exchange, also will be shutting on Monday its trading floor which is located in a mandatory evacuation zone.

The moves come as Hurricane Sandy causes the shutdown of transportation systems throughout the region. Governor Andrew Cuomo said New York City's subways and buses will shut down Sunday evening. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered residents to evacuate some low-lying areas Sunday and said city public schools will close Monday.
Even if Hurricane Sandy knocks out power for lower Manhattan, the NYSE can switch to its backup power generators for electricity. The servers that handle the exchange's transactions are housed in Mahwah, NJ.

Airlines hastily canceled flights in the Northeast Sunday as Hurricane Sandy moved up the coast. The massive storm threatens to bring a near halt to air travel for at least two days in a key region for both domestic and international flights.

Major carriers such as American Airlines, JetBlue and Delta planned Sunday night to cancel all flights into and out of three area airports in New York, the nation's busiest airspace. Delays rippled across the US and the Atlantic, affecting travellers in cities such as San Francisco, Chicago and Paris.

Cancellations are mounting. According to the flight-tracking service FlightAware, more than 6,800 flights had been canceled for Sunday and Monday as of Sunday evening. Both Philadelphia International Airport and Newark International Airport, a hub for United Airlines, each had more than 1,200 cancellations for the two days.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are hastily rearranging their campaign schedules as hurricane Sandy sweeps up the US east coast, introducing unpredictability into an already razor-tight election battle. Mr Obama left Sunday evening for Florida for rallies with Bill Clinton and then Ohio Monday, but has cancelled a third in Virginia to return to Washington to oversee the response to the "superstorm".

Mr Romney, his Republican challenger, also cancelled a Monday rally in Virginia, south of Washington, and will campaign instead in Ohio, the swing state likely to decide the election. Hurricane Sandy, with winds as high as 75mph, was moving north, parallel to the coast Sunday and was expected to make landfall in the New Jersey and New York areas this evening.

The political fallout from the storm is impossible to measure, offering a chance for Mr Obama to display leadership but potentially disrupting the investment his campaign has made in getting supporters to the polls. "Obviously, we want unfettered access to the polls because we believe that the more people come out, the better we're going to do," David Axelrod, a senior Obama adviser, told CNN.