President Barack Obama said the U.S. public needs to prepare for Hurricane Sandy to make landfall on Monday evening and predicted millions of people will be affected by the storm.
"This is going to be a big and powerful storm and all across the Eastern Seaboard I think everybody is taking the appropriate preparations," he told reporters after having a briefing on the storm in the White House Situation Room.
Obama said those in the region affected by the Hurricane should listen to local and state officials on whether or not to evacuate, and expressed confidence that emergency crews are prepared to tackle the storm preparations and clean-up that will be needed in the coming days.
This as, the replica tall ship HMS Bounty reportedly sank in the path of Hurricane Sandy off North Carolina on Monday, while 14 of the 16 crew members were rescued by helicopter from life rafts, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
"The vessel is reportedly sunk, but the mast is still visible," the Coast Guard said, adding that it went down in 18-foot (5-metre) seas.
The 14 survivors were flown to a Coast Guard air station in North Carolina and were reported to have "no life threatening injuries."
The air search was continuing for the two missing crew members and a Coast Guard Cutter was en route to assist with the search.
The tall ship was built for the 1962 movie "Mutiny on the Bounty" and lost power while at sea on Sunday night.
Hurricane Sandy, a mammoth storm
menacing the East Coast, took aim at the most densely populated US region on
Monday, forcing hundreds of thousands to seek higher ground, halting public
transport and closing schools, businesses and government departments.
About 50 million people from the
Mid-Atlantic to Canada were in the path of the storm, which forecasters say
could be the largest ever to hit the US mainland. It is expected to topple
trees, damage buildings and cause widespread power outages over the next few
days.
The websites of forecasting services
indicated early Monday the storm will strike the New Jersey shore near Atlantic
City Monday night.
While Sandy does not pack the punch of
Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, its winds stretch some
520 miles (835 km) from its eye, meteorologists said.
New York and other cities and towns closed
their transit systems and schools and ordered mass evacuations from low-lying
areas ahead of a storm surge that could reach as high as 11 feet (3.4 meters).
Sandy forced President Barack Obama and
Republican challenger Mitt Romney to cancel some campaign stops and fueled
fears that it could disrupt early voting - encouraged by the candidates this
year more than ever - before the Nov. 6 election.
In this context, the White House reported on Monday that President Obama will be cancelling a campaign event in Wisconsin on Tuesday due to the hurricane Sandy.
The United Nations, Broadway theaters, New
Jersey casinos, schools up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and myriad corporate
events are also being shut down.
Officials ordered people in coastal towns
and low-lying areas to evacuate, often telling them they would put emergency
workers' lives at risk if they stayed.
Transportation is grinding to a halt, with
airlines cancelling flights, bridges and tunnels closing, and Amtrak scrapping
nearly all of its passenger rail service on the East Coast. The federal
government told non-emergency workers in Washington D.C. to stay home.
While Sandy's 75 mph (120 kph) winds were
not overwhelming for a hurricane, its exceptional size means the winds will
last as long as two days, bringing down trees and damaging buildings.
Even with all the warnings,
some people tried to carry on with their plans.
Sandy affects stock markets:
U.S. equity markets are unlikely to open on Tuesday as Hurricane Sandy bears down on the New York area, a senior exchange official at one of the major exchanges told Reuters on Monday.
A decision has not been made yet, but with the hurricane closing in and metro-area transit systems closed, it is highly likely that U.S. equity trading on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Markets will remain closed.
Industry officials were expected to discuss whether to open or not early Monday afternoon, the source said.
"I would be surprised if the group decides otherwise," the person said.
The fixed income market will be closed Tuesday, a trade group said Monday. Many firms put contingency plans into effect to have a skeletal staff in the office Monday.
In this context, BAT Global Markets, the No. 3 U.S. stock exchange, said on Monday its U.S. markets will be closed on Tuesday due to Hurricane Sandy, following a coordinated decision made by regulators and industry executives.
BATS said it will continue to monitor the situation on Tuesday and provide updates regarding the trading schedule for Wednesday as the situation progresses.
REUTERS