Witnessed the fierce Hurricane Sandy hitting New York: A Night of Heavy Winds and Rain

Witnessed by Xinhua journalists, the rare gale brought by Sandy swept past, its piercing howls causing alarm. Heavy rains followed the wind, flooding the sky with water. On the street on the 30th, the once bustling thoroughfare lay in silence; it took a long time to see a few people hurrying through the bleak storm. Everywhere were broken branches and leaves, a scene of chaos. For U.S. President Obama, New York City Mayor Bloomberg, New York State Governor Cuomo, New Jersey Governor Christie, and millions of residents in the U.S. East Coast, this night was a sleepless one filled with pain. At 30 a.m., Obama declared a disaster emergency in New York and New Jersey. The disaster Sandy brought to New York is far from over. As of 6 a.m. on the 30th (6 p.m. Beijing time), nearly 2 million households in New York were without power. Power companies admitted that full restoration of power to New York would take at least a week. The Queens area where the journalist was located, a path of Sandy, was hit by frequent disasters. Besides reports of injuries, a major fire broke out early in the morning due to the hurricane, completely destroying dozens of houses. The fiery glow was visible from a great distance. The New York Fire Department classified the fire as a severe 6-alarm, with over 170 firefighters battling the flames on site, managing to control the fire with at least two injuries reported. The journalist observed that the subway stations in Queens, which were closed, had some water accumulation, but the internal facilities seemed to have suffered no major damage. The New York authorities had already suspended all subway services on the evening of the 28th, but the severe disaster brought by the hurricane still posed an extremely challenging test for the century-old New York subway system. Joseph J. Lhota, the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation, issued a statement early on the morning of the 30th, saying that multiple subway and train lines under the East River were flooded, major highway tunnels were overflowing with water, and several bus hubs were completely out of service. Lhota admitted that this was the "most severe challenge" the New York public transportation department had ever faced and the "most severe damage" the New York subway had encountered in a century. He vowed to do everything possible to resolve the situation and restore public transportation services as soon as possible. However, external estimates suggest that the public transportation system will remain fully paralyzed until at least the 31st. Through interviews, the journalist learned that Manhattan was also facing severe power outages, with lower Manhattan in darkness, resembling a "ghost town." The hurricane caused the Hudson and East Rivers to overflow, flooding lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, with some neighborhoods experiencing severe flooding. New Jersey, neighboring New York, faced even more severe disasters. Due to the hurricane's landfall in New Jersey, the state was heavily impacted. Sandy caused over 2.4 million households in New Jersey to lose power, with nearly 95% of Newark's urban area without electricity. Due to a dam destroyed by the hurricane, thousands of New Jersey residents were evacuated. From the latest radar images released by the National Hurricane Center, the journalist saw that the majority of Sandy's massive storm vortex was still over the U.S. East Coast, and the shape of the entire storm was still clearly recognizable, indicating that the storm's intensity had not significantly diminished. According to preliminary estimates, Sandy has caused 18 deaths in the United States and over 7.4 million households without power in the U.S. East Coast. However, the disaster is still spreading. Currently, 20 million people in New York State and nearly 9 million in New Jersey are still on high alert, with thousands of residents facing life-and-death tests.