Monster Storm Sandy slammed into the East Coast Monday, killing at least 16 people, hurling a record-breaking 13-foot surge of seawater at New York City and knocking out power to an estimated 6.2 million people.
The massive storm was downgraded from a hurricane after it barged ashore in southern New Jersey, bringing more than 85-mph winds and a roiling wall of seawater as it moved through New York City,
The 16 deaths were reported in New Jersey, New York, Maryland, North Carolina, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Some of the victims were killed by falling trees. At least one death was blamed on the storm in Canada.
The power was out for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and an estimated 6.2 million people altogether across the East, with the full extent of the storm’s damage across the region unclear and unlikely to be known until daybreak.
Sandy has already been blamed for 69 deaths in the Caribbean before it began traveling northward, parallel to the Eastern Seaboard.
In Washington, President Obama urged the millions in Sandy’s path to heed warnings from local and state officials.
