East Coast Braces for Sandy

Want to hear God laugh? Make a plan in the path of a Category 1 Frankenstorm. Sandy is disrupting lives and presidential campaign schedules all along the East Coast. Here's what's happening:

• Both President Obama and Mitt Romney have canceled events in Virginia, and Obama today canceled a trip to Orlando in order to monitor the storm from Washington, WESH 2 reports.

• "In times like this, one of the things Americans do is we pull together and we help out one another," Obama said yesterday from FEMA headquarters, saying the storm was "serious and big." The White House has declared emergencies in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, the AP reports.
• The storm will give Obama a chance to look presidential. “The president will be in the thick of it—which is when he’s at his best,” a Democrat source told Politico. “There is no way for Romney to replicate that.”
• The New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ have both announced a rare closure today, the USA Today reports. The last time weather forced financial markets to close was for Hurricane Gloria in 1985.
• New York has shut down all train, bus, and subway service, and closed school for 1.1 million students. "If you don't evacuate, you are not only endangering your life, you are also endangering the lives of the first responders who are going in to rescue you," Michael Bloomberg warned residents.
• Thousands of flights to and from the East Coast have been canceled, notes CNN.
• Delaware has imposed a driving ban on all non-essential vehicles; anyone caught driving can be fined up to $115, WDDE reports.
• The storm has also forced the crew of the HMS Bounty to abandon ship off the coast of North Carolina. Yes, that's the replica tall ship built for the film Mutiny on the Bounty, Reuters reports.
• Still don't believe Sandy will be a big deal? Then take a look at these satellite photos comparing Sandy to Hurricane Irene.

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