Hurricane sandy

[OhYouBigBadBeast]

Looking potentially very serious indeed for the eastern seaboard of the US, perhaps including NYC if some models are correct. The storm will probably be extra tropical but nevertheless if it interacts with a trough modelled off the east coast that could bring down arctic air then the result could be approaching catastrophic, with utterly torrential rain, severe blizzards, hurricane force winds and severe storm surges all being possible.

I think people will be getting very worried about this. Mon tues weds are the days to be watching. Lets hope the storm turns east away from the us coast.

Somebody asked about New Jersey - I also have family there. They still have power but are expecting it to go very shortly. Hopefully only for 24 hours or so.

I hope people don't get confused by the fact that it's no longer a hurricane and think it's all over. It is still a huge storm system.

There's an indication as to its size on the BBC site: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20123703 - scroll down to see what it looks like superimposed on Europe.

All so worrying on so many levels. Not a religious person but I won't sleep well tonight thinking about it all and have made a prayer that it's not as bad as it all looks right now.

Another update from DB, humour this time and with friends so a bit happier, but not much xx

Text from other best friends who are now in charge of updating all the friends and relatives of our friends.
They are in their hotel, safe and waiting for storm to come and hope its over by morning. Bags packed just in case

Water has apparently reached 10.5ft at The Battery, which I think is now at the point where it will be breached and risk flooding the subway. Still more water to come too.

Poor old Ocean City, Maryland; I lived and worked there for a few months. The whole place is basically a sand spit; I can't imagine what a storm surge will do to the place.

To those of you affected - hope you are OK.

We're in central Brooklyn and there are some trees down and a few power outages, but nothing too serious here yet. Meant to get worse overnight though and the wind has definitely strengthened over the course of the afternoon.

You can look at the graph of the rising water here

Just spoke to a friend half an hour north of Manhattan and they've lost power.

Hope they get it back soon helpyourself.

Just got back from work. OBiL in DE says he's surprised as they still have power, but they've had a couple of power flickers. The sump pump is soldiering on, though they've cleared the basement.

Sounds like a sensible precaution!

Vixcyn sorry about your brother's roof.

DB in Manhattan - he's fine, well stocked. Says it's insanely windy already, and storm centre still a couple hundred miles away. The BBC pictures of the crane at 5th and W57th were scary.

Oh, and they've had a tree go down. Apparently the dog really, really wanted to try and fetch the tree into the house and is sulking because this was physically impossible not allowed.

I think that what was the eye has reached the coast now? If you look at this you can see the pressure just starting to rise.
Water still rising unfortunately.

The Battery now at 10.7 ft.

A Weather Channel reporter has just cautioned people against standing on the beach and taking pictures ... while standing on the beach taking pictures.

FDNY twitter feed has just reported a collapsed multi dwelling building at 8th Ave

Please no

Bloody hell.

Oh hell. I hope that's not true.

it has come up on the bbc news live text feed bbc (hopefully this is the right link)

They have found one of the missing crew but she is unresponsive