Some officials say that the damage from Hurricane Sandy could be unprecedented. One government model says we could be looking at more than $7 billion in damages, and that’s just from the wind. When it comes to storms that make landfall in the northeastern U.S., this is one or the other get compared to. The Long Island Hurricane of 1938. One of the things that experts look at when they are measuring hurricanes is the low pressure reading. Usually, the lower the pressure, the stronger the storm. The 1938 hurricane had a low pressure reading of 946 millibars. 

 

Sandy’s low pressure reading, 943. I asked CNN’s Chad Myers about the comparison between these two storms. 

 

The problem with this storm call is that people took it as a category one. It had the pressure of a category two or three, the wind field of a category one hurricane, but yet the surge of a category two or three. When it got north of Cape Hatteras, and kept getting stronger, the pressure of this storm was deeper, it was a stronger storm than the 1938 storm that just rolled right over Long Island. This was always a dangerous storm, we knew it in the pressure. Sometimes you just can’t tell people, hey, it’s a cat one, take cover, because they say ah, it’s just a cat one, we don’t care. This was much, much more than a category one hurricane. 

 

All right, thanks, Chad. There is something else going on with Hurricane Sandy that could make its impact even worse. It’s the possibility that this could turn into a super storm. Now, let me show you what we mean by that. There is Sandy spinning off the East Coast, and that high pressure system is keeping it from moving out into the Atlantic. Then there is this cold front moving in from the west. What happens is that when the cold air and the warm air meet up and make Sandy more powerful, and you can see there, it keeps the storm in that same area, just sitting right over that part of the country. When it’s all said and done, Sandy could end up affecting up to 60 million people. Some states have mandatory evacuations, thousands of people spent the night at shelters like this one. Hundreds of thousands of people lost power, and school was cancelled for millions of students. We heard from some of you on Facebook and Twitter about that.

 

Hurricane Sandy is even having an impact on the race for the White House. President Obama and Republican presidential nominee Romney, both altered or cancelled campaign events yesterday. Instead of next week’s election, they were focused on the storm and the people in its path. 

 

We anticipate that there are going to be a lot of trees down, a lot of water and despite the fact that the power companies are working very closely with the various state officials and local officials to make sure that they are bringing in as many assets as possible and getting those ready in preparation for the storm, the fact is that a lot of these emergency crews are not going to be able to get into position to start restoring power until some of these winds have died down. 

 

We faced these kinds of challenges before. And as we have, it’s interesting to see how Americans come together, and this, this looks like another time when we need to come together, all across the country, even here in Ohio, and make sure that we give of our support to the people who need it.