Doug Barotra managed to carry more than 50 cans of beer out of his local supermarket after waiting 45 minutes to get to the cashier. He is expecting the worst from Hurricane Sandy.
“As long as the power doesn’t go, I think I’ll survive,” Barotra said as he struggled with his load on New York’s Third Avenue back to his Midtown apartment. “I live on the 18th floor, if it gets bad I’m just going to stay there for the next three days.”
Long lines formed at supermarkets on cities in New York and other major east coast cities for bottles of water, bread, fresh foods, batteries and anything that could help last out the so-called “Frankenstorm” heading for the northeast United States.
At the Trader Joe stores in New York’s Upper West Side and on Union Square, the queues wound out of the supermarket entrances and staff let customers in a handful at a time.
There was a lot of groaning in the queues.
“By the time we get inside, there may not be much left for us,” said art student Lisa Nichols, in the long Union Square queue. “I am going to check out what my friends have managed to stock.”
New York city’s subways and bus lines start shutting down at 7:00 pm Sunday, leaving New Yorkers pretty much confined to their immediate neighborhoods.
New York’s Battery Park City and East Village were among at-risk zones where mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered a mandatory evacuation. About 375,000 people lived in the affected seafront zones in the five boroughs under Bloomberg’s jurisdiction.
Seventy-two schools and other buildings were opened up as emergency shelters. Bloomberg said that people in the evacuation zones should be ready to rough it on a friend’s floor for a couple of days.
Many inhabitants said they were going to ignore the evacuation order, however.
Richard Bogart filled sandbags and set up a wall across the driveway to his home in Coney Island. “I have heard the order, but when Irene hit last year the cellar was flooded and I have to be here in case something happens.”
Many of his neighbors followed the same tactic.
Hurricane Sandy was on target to collide with a cold front bearing down from the north, creating what meteorologists have named “Frankenstorm” which threatens floods, high winds and even heavy snow across many eastern states.
The storm surge from Hurricane Irene last year was between four and five feet (1.2 and 1.5 meters). This time experts are predicting a surge twice as high.
New York authorities have ordered 1,100 national guard troops into the state, including 200 who will patrol Manhattan streets and 300 in threatened Long Island districts.
Bloomberg said people who ignored the evacuation order would not be arrested but condemned them as “selfish” individuals because they would have to be rescued if the worst predictions come true.
Big New York queues for water, bread and beer
