'Frankenstorm': Hurricane Sandy could be worst storm to hit northeast in 100 years

If current forecasts are correct, Hurricane Sandy will probably grow into a “Frankenstorm” that may become the worst to hit the U.S. Northeast in 100 years.

Sandy may combine with a second storm coming out of the Midwest to create a system that would rival the New England hurricane of 1938 in intensity, said Paul Kocin, a National Weather Service meteorologist in College Park, Maryland. The hurricane currently passing the Bahamas has killed 21 people across the Caribbean, the Associated Press reported, citing local officials.

“What we’re seeing in some of our models is a storm at an intensity that we have not seen in this part of the country in the past century,” Kocin said in a telephone interview Thursday. “We’re not trying to hype it, this is what we’re seeing in some of our models. It may come in weaker.”

The hybrid storm may strike anywhere from the Delaware- Maryland-Virginia peninsula to southern New England. The current National Hurricane Center track calls for the system to go ashore in New Jersey on Oct. 30, although landfall predictions often change as storms get closer to shore.

A tropical-storm watch was issued from Savannah River northward to Oregon Inlet in North Carolina, the U.S. NHC said in an advisory. A tropical storm warning is in effect for Florida’s east coast from Ocean Reef to Flagler Beach. A storm watch means tropical storm conditions are possible within the region, a warning means tropical storm conditions are expected.

1938 Storm

“If the storm follows the current hurricane center forecast, we are looking at over $5 billion in damage,” Chuck Watson, director of research and development at Kinetic Analysis Corp. in Silver Spring, Maryland, said Thursday.

Watson said the track may change quite a bit between now and early next week. An accurate assessment of potential damage from wind and rain probably can’t be made until late this week.

As of 5 a.m. New York time, Sandy had weakened to a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale with winds of 80 miles per hour, down from 100 mph earlier, according to the hurricane center in Miami. It was located 15 miles (24 kilometers) east-southeast of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas and 485 miles south-southeast of Charleston South, Carolina and moving northwest at 13 mph.

The 1938 hurricane killed more than 500 people after crossing Long Island and battering Connecticut and Rhode Island.

’Worst Fears’

“We can say even now our worst fears may be realized,” Kocin said. “If we were seeing what we’re seeing today one day out, we would really be shouting the alarms.”

Governments along the East Coast are preparing for Sandy’s impact. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo directed state agencies to monitor the storm and Massachusetts’s Emergency Management Agency warned residents to expect the worst.

New York City has a 55 percent chance of winds of at least 39 mph by Oct. 30, according to estimates by Tropical Storm Risk, a consortium of experts on insurance, risk management and climate supported by the U.K. government.

The center’s track predicts landfall between Atlantic City and Toms River, New Jersey.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city was taking routine precautions at this stage.

“A good message to everybody is you should always have a ‘go’ plan,” he said at a news conference Thursday. “Particularly if you live near the water in a low area, you may have to be evacuated. I wouldn’t plan on it today. Listen to the radio and if necessary follow the instructions.”

The mayor is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.

U.S. Utilities

Utilities along the East Coast were monitoring the storm. Nine mid-Atlantic power companies held their first conference call Oct. 24 to discuss how crews will be dispatched to the hardest-hit areas, Myra Oppel, a spokeswoman for Pepco, Washington’s electric utility, said Thursday in an interview.

Pepco retained 400 contractors already working on its system so they’d be available if the storm hits that area, Oppel said. New Jersey’s Public Service Electric & Gas Co. prepared sandbags to protect substations.

Exelon Corp. (EXC)’s Baltimore Gas & Electric urged its 1.2 million power customers in central Maryland to prepare for power failures and flooding. “We’re taking this extremely seriously,” Robert Gould, a utility spokesman, said in an interview Thursday.

Remain a Hurricane

The system crossed Jamaica Oct. 24 and Cuba Thursday, tracking north to the central Bahamas, where a hurricane watch was posted for many of the islands.

Winds of at least 74 mph extend 35 miles from Sandy’s core, while gusts of 39 mph reach out 275 miles. The distance from Freeport, Bahamas, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is 94 miles.

“Some additional weakening is forecast during the next 48 hours, but Sandy is expected to remain a hurricane for the next couple of days,” the hurricane center said. “Sandy is expected to grow in size.”

The storm has killed 11 people in eastern Santiago and Guantanamo provinces in Cuba, one person while crossing Jamaica and nine in Haiti, the Associated Press reported.

On Jamaica, 70 percent of the island lost power, roofs were torn from homes and roads were blocked by downed trees and floods as Sandy roared ashore, according to Air Worldwide.

Buckeye Partners LP (BPL) suspended operations at the BORCO terminal in the Bahamas, Kevin Goodwin, a company spokesman, said. The terminal can hold 21.6 million barrels of crude, fuel oil and other refined products.

The amount of damage the East Coast is going to absorb is hard to estimate because the storm’s track is in flux, Tom Larsen, senior vice president and product architect at Eqecat Inc., a risk modeler in Oakland, California, said Thursday.

Larsen said he doesn’t expect Sandy to be worse than Irene, which struck the East Coast in August 2011, killing at least 45 people and causing at least $15.8 billion in damage, according to the hurricane center.