Superstorm Sandy's extremes, by the numbers

          
Hurricane Sandy, after killing at least 69 people in the Caribbean, streamed northward, merged with two wintry weather systems and socked the U.S. Northeast, mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes with wind, waves, rain and snow. Some figures associated with Sandy's rampage through the U.S., as of Tuesday evening:
 
Maximum size of storm: 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) across
    
Highest storm surge: 13.88 feet (4.23 meters), at New York
     
Number of states seeing intense effects of the storm: At least 17
    
Deaths: At least 50, expected to rise [43 estimated in Canada and US]
     
Damage: Estimated property losses at $20 billion, ranking the storm among the most expensive U.S. disasters
     
Top wind gust on land in the U.S.: 140 mph (225 kph), at Mount Washington, New Hampshire.
     
Power outages at peak: More than 8.5 million
     
Canceled airline flights: More than 18,100
    
Most rainfall: 12.55 inches (31.88 centimeters), at Easton, Maryland.
     
Most snow: 28 inches (71 centimeters), at Redhouse, Maryland.
     
Evacuation zone: Included communities in more than 400 miles (640 kilometers) of coastline from Ocean City, Maryland, to Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

Power Outage:

The most devastating storm in decades to hit the most densely populated U.S. region cut off modern communication and left millions without power Tuesday, as thousands who fled their waterlogged homes wondered when  if  life would return to normal.
 
A weakening Sandy, the hurricane turned fearsome superstorm, killed at least 50 people, many hit by falling trees, and still wasn't finished. It inched inland across Pennsylvania, ready to bank toward western New York state to dump more of its water and likely cause more havoc Tuesday night.Behind it: a dazed, inundated New York City, a drenched Atlantic Coast and a moonscape of disarray and debris  from unmoored shore-town boardwalks to submerged mass-transit systems to delicate presidential politics.
 
More than 8.2 million households were without power in 17 states as far west as Michigan. Nearly 2 million of those were in New York, where large swaths of lower Manhattan lost electricity and entire streets ended up under water  as did seven subway tunnels between Manhattan and Brooklyn at one point, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said.


Air Traffic:

Superstorm Sandy grounded more than 18,000 flights across the Northeast and the globe, and it will take days before travel gets back to normal.
    
According to the flight-tracking service FlightAware, more than 7,000 flights were canceled on Tuesday alone. Delays rippled across the U.S., affecting travelers in cities from San Francisco to Atlanta.  Some passengers attempting to fly out of Europe and Asia also were stuck.
     
Authorities closed the three big New York airports because of the storm. New York has the nation's busiest airspace, so cancellations there can dramatically affect travel in other cities.
     
It was possible that John F. Kennedy airport would re-open for flights on Wednesday, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. It wasn't known when the LaGuardia and Newark, N.J. airports would reopen.
     
Flying began to resume at other airports. Delta restarted flying from Boston and Washington Dulles and Reagan on Tuesday. Airline spokesman Morgan Durrant said it would resume domestic flights from JFK on Wednesday.
    
Service was slowly returning to Philadelphia International Airport on Tuesday afternoon.

Social Media:

As Hurricane Sandy pounded the U.S. Atlantic coast on Monday night, knocking out electricity and Internet connections, millions of residents turned to Twitter as a part-newswire, part-911 hotline that hummed through the night even as some websites failed and swathes of Manhattan fell dark.
   
But the social network also became a fertile ground for pranksters who seized the moment to disseminate rumors and Photoshopped images, including a false tweet Monday night that the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange was submerged under several feet of water.
   
The exchange issued a denial, but not before the tweet was circulated by countless users and reported on-air by CNN, illustrating how Twitter had become the essential - but deeply fallible - spine of information coursing through real-time, major media events.


AP/REUTERS/LBCI