Sandy strengthens as it bears down on eastern US

Hurricane Sandy strengthened overnight off the mid-Atlantic coast and was expected to bring a "life-threatening storm surge? that forecasters warned could hit New York City with a wall of water up to 11 feet high.

Maximum sustained winds of about 85 miles per hour were recorded 385 miles southeast of New York City early Monday.

Forecasters said Sandy has the ingredients to transform into a "super storm" as it merges with an Arctic jet stream, which could make the storm unlike anything seen over the eastern United States in decades.

The center of the storm was forecast to make landfall Monday night - likely in central or southern New Jersey - leaving millions of residents with only hours to prepare for its onslaught.

Video: Roker: Up to 11-foot storm surge expected

State and local officials have issued mandatory evacuation orders for hundreds of thousands of residents in low-lying areas across the region. In anticipation of widespread damage and vast power outages, states of emergency were declared in nine states -- North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts -- and the District of Columbia.

"We're looking at impact of greater than 50 to 60 million people," said Louis Uccellini, head of environmental prediction for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

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

He added: "This is an extraordinary situation, and I am not prone to hyperbole."

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

Weather.com predicted that "Sandy will be one of the strongest cyclones to hit the U.S. East Coast in years, with damaging winds, storm surge and rainfall flooding the primary threats."

Forecasters said the super-storm could bring close to a foot of rain in some regions, a potentially lethal storm surge of 4 to 11 feet across much of the coastline, and punishing winds that could cause widespread power outages that last for days. The storm could also dump up to 2 feet of snow in Kentucky, North Carolina and West Virginia.

Hurricane-force winds were extending up to 175 miles from the storm's center early Monday. It was moving northward at 14 mph but was expected to hook west during the day.

Video: FEMA chief: Inland damage is a real concern

In a measurement of pure kinetic energy, NOAA's hurricane research division on Sunday ranked the surge and wave "destruction potential" for Sandy ? just the hurricane, not the hybrid storm it will eventually become ? at 5.8 on a 0-to-6 scale.

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

U.S. stock exchanges will not be trading on Monday and possibly Tuesday. In Washington, D.C., federal offices will remain closed Monday, and federal courts in affected areas announced they would be shuttered in anticipation of the historic storm.

Workers on Sunday night began shutting down New York City's subway, bus and commuter railroads as ordered by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In New Jersey, bus, rail and light rail services were gradually shut down starting Sunday afternoon.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered mandatory evacuations (.PDF) of 375,000 people from low-lying areas in New York City, signifying officials' growing concern about the severity of the storm and its impact on the five boroughs. About 45,000 of those were people living in public housing, where the heat, hot water and elevator services will be turned off, Bloomberg said, according to NBCNewYork.com.

Out at sea, the Coast Guard was early Monday responding to a distress call from a replica of the HMS Bounty. Seventeen people were forced to abandon ship 90 miles southeast of Hatteras N.C. The vessel, used in the 1962 movie "Mutiny on the Bounty" with Marlon Brando, was abandoned amid 18-foot seas.

BreakingNews.com's coverage of Sandy

"Sandy is a large hurricane and large systems pose multiple hazards for more people than ? smaller systems of comparable intensity," National Hurricane Center Director Rick Knabb said Sunday. "The large size of the system is why it is so capable of producing a life-threatening storm surge, with that threat being applicable to many areas."

Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy ordered mandatory evacuations on Sunday in vulnerable areas of Bridgeport and Fairfield.

Separately, several cities, including Stamford, Conn., and Islip, N.Y., also ordered residents out of flood-prone areas.

Not everyone was heeding the evacuation orders. Peter Mercatanti, 26, who lives on Deauville Beach in Mantoloking, N.J., said Sunday afternoon that he had kayaks ready and had packed wet suits, waterproof book bags, flares, glow sticks, flashlights, propane and food to wait out the storm.

He had stocked sandbags around his home and put up shelter blinds on all of the windows and the doors.

"I just wanted to be here for it, see it, experience it, and try to take care of my house as much as possible," Mercatanti, a chief of operations for a gym chain, told NBC News by telephone.

President Barack Obama on Sunday visited the National Response Coordination Center at FEMA Headquarters, where the deployment of federal resources and teams to states up and down the East Coast will be coordinated, the White House said.

Calling it a "very serious storm event," he said: "This is going to affect a big swath of the country and because it's slow moving, it could be a number of days until people get power back."

Share your images of Hurricane Sandy preparations

Sandy also was disrupting travel in the region. More than 6,800 flights have been canceled so far, according to FlightAware.com, a flight tracking website. Rail traffic also was impacted, with Amtrak canceling all of its northeast corridor service in addition to some other lines.

Election issues
Coming in the hectic run-up to the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 6, the storm presented a challenge to the campaigns of Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.

Obama canceled campaign stops in Virginia and Colorado early next week because of the hurricane and was planning to remain at the White House, his spokesman said Saturday.

Romney rescheduled his campaign events for Virginia on Sunday and headed to Ohio instead.

Video: Hurricane Sandy could dampen Virginia campaigns (on this page)

Sandy is set to deliver potential election surprise

Power outages caused by the storm, expected to affect millions of residents and businesses, could continue through the 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.

Although Sandy is not forecast to be as strong as other recent storms to hit the Northeast ? such 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.

Some experts predict at least $1 billion in damage in the United States.

Slideshow: Sandy sets sights on East Coast (on this page)

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

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

the grey machine gun kelly saul alinsky annapolis wwe royal rumble trisomy leon panetta