NEW YORK Much of New York was plunged into darkness Monday by a superstorm that overflowed the city's historic waterfront, flooded the financial district and subway tunnels and cut power to hundreds of thousands of people, including at a Manhattan hospital.
The city had shut its mass transit system, schools, the stock exchange and Broadway and ordered hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to leave home to get out of the way of a combination of Sandy, a wintry system from the West and cold air streaming from the Arctic as it zeroed in on the nation's largest city.
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During the evening, the storm surge peaked at a record 13.88 feet at the Battery Tunnel, according to the Mayor's office. Utilities darkened parts of downtown Manhattan on purpose to avoid storm damage and water started lapping over the seawall in Battery Park City, flooded rail yards and parts of the financial district, Lower East Side and Brooklyn.
Shortly after the massive storm made landfall in southern New Jersey, Consolidated Edison cut power deliberately to about 6,500 customers in downtown Manhattan to avert further damage. Then, huge swaths of the city went dark, losing power to a total of 300,000 customers in Manhattan, Con Ed Vice President of Electric Operation John Miksad said.
An explosion at a plant on 14th street in Manhattan -- two blinding bursts caught on video -- contributed to the blackouts. CBS Correspondent John Miller reports hearing two loud booms, followed by complete darkness on the streets for about 20 blocks in either direction. Miksad said no one was injured and they have not yet confirmed what caused it, but the speculate flooding or flying debris to be responsible.
A total 670,000 customers lost power Monday in New York City, the northern suburbs and coastal Long Island, where floodwaters swamped cars, downed trees and put neighborhoods under water.
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Miksad said it was the largest storm-related outage in Con Ed's history.
"This is one for the history books," he told reporters late Monday night.
MTA officials told WCBS it could take up to 4 days just to pump the water out of the subway tunnels. Salt water could corrode the switches and signals in the system, which would force the MTA to replace hundreds of pieces of equipment before any service could be restored.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday evening backup power had been lost at New York University Hospital, which is by the East River, and the city was working to evacuate patients and staff.
"Some of them are every sick. We're trying to make sure they move safely and carefully," Robert Grossman, dean of the NYU Langone Medical Center, told WCBS.
The storm had only killed one New York City resident by Monday night, a man who died when a tree fell on his home in the Flushing section of Queens. The office of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says at least five people have died in New York state because of the storm lashing the area.
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The rains and howling winds, some believed to reach more than 95 mph, left a crane hanging off a luxury high-rise in midtown Manhattan, causing the evacuation of hundreds from a posh hotel and other buildings. Inspectors were climbing 74 flights of stairs to examine the crane hanging from the $1.5 billion.
The facade of a four-story Manhattan building in the Chelsea neighborhood crumbled and collapsed suddenly, leaving the lights, couches, cabinets and desks inside visible from the street. No one was hurt, although some of the falling debris hit a car.
On coastal Long Island, floodwaters swamped cars, downed trees and put neighborhoods under water as beachfronts and fishing villages bore the brunt of the storm. A police car was lost rescuing 14 people from the popular resort Fire Island.
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Earlier, some New Yorkers defiantly soldiered on, trying to salvage normal routines and refusing to evacuate, as the mayor ordered 375,000 in low-lying areas to do.
Mark Vial pushed a stroller holding his 2-year-old daughter Maziyar toward his apartment building in Battery Park City, an area that was ordered evacuated.
"We're high up enough, so I'm not worried about flooding," said Via, 35. "There's plenty of food. We'll be OK."
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On Long Island, floodwaters had begun to deluge some low-lying towns and nearly 150,000 customers had lost power. Cars floated along the streets of Long Beach and flooding consumed several blocks south of the bay, residents said.
Cuomo, holding a news conference on Long Island where the lights flickered and his mike went in and out, said most of the National Guards deployed to the New York City area would go to Long Island.
"Long Island has become more and more vulnerable and the primary area of our concentration," he said.
In the fishing village of Greenport, Sean Seal piled dirt and sandbags onto the alleyway behind his collectibles store where the water was steadily creeping up the street toward his front door. He only opened the shop about two months ago.
"We put everything up. Up on tables, up on shelves, as far as we could," he said. "It's gonna be devastating. We'll lose a lot of stuff."
Anoush Vargas drove with her husband, Michael to the famed Jones Beach Monday morning, only to find it covered by water.
"We have no more beach. It's gone," she said, shaking her head as she watched the waves go under the boardwalk.
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