40x05 - Inside the Megastorm

[bunniefuu]

NARRATOR: Anatomy
of a catastrophe

MAN [on loudspeaker]: The
mayor of the city of New York

has ordered a
mandatory evacuation

NARRATOR: Superstorm
Sandy slams the Northeast

A huge storm surge!

And the water never
stopped coming

It came down, and it just
washed everything away

NARRATOR: Dozens dead,
tens of thousands homeless,

entire communities obliterated

The entire sky was just lit up

Like a b*mb went off

NARRATOR: Are lethal
storms becoming more frequent,

more destructive,
even more deadly?

ALEXANDER MacDONALD: It
really was a combination of the worst

that nature delivers in storms

NARRATOR: Storm
chasers take you inside

the eye of Hurricane Sandy
for a blow-by-blow account

of an epic natural disaster

JEFF WEBER: So, it
came in right at high tide

during a full moon,
record storm surge

with incredible winds

NARRATOR: How vulnerable
are the most populated cities?

WEBER: So, there
are parts of Manhattan

that were being impacted


NARRATOR: Can we
engineer our way to safety

if Sandy is a sign
of things to come?

"Inside the Megastorm,"
a special presentation,

right now on NOVA.

Major funding for NOVA
is provided by the following

Supporting NOVA and promoting
public understanding of science

And the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting

And by PBS viewers like you

And Millicent Bell, through:

NARRATOR: In the warm
waters of the Caribbean,

a tropical storm is forming,

one that is about to write
its way into the history books

It's the 18th storm
of the Atlantic season

The National Weather
Service assigns a name

from near the bottom of
this year's predetermined list,

an innocent-sounding label
for what will soon become,

against all odds, a
devastating megastorm:

Sandy

It's October 22, 2012

Al, good morning

All eyes right now on
the Caribbean, Matt

Sandy is 120 miles,


Kingston, Jamaica



Just not quite a hurricane yet

NARRATOR: Tropical storms
are a fact of life in the Caribbean,

but only about half
strengthen into hurricanes

Hurricanes are systems
that are born in the tropics,

and they need to have


Approximately 80
degrees Fahrenheit... water

to get the systems going

They actually act
as a heat engine

They take the warm water,
and it rises up as water vapor

And as that water
vapor condenses,

it releases latent heat
into the atmosphere,

and that's where the
wind energy is coming from

NARRATOR: Only one
in 20 Atlantic hurricanes

ever strikes the East Coast

Odds are that Sandy will do

what virtually all of
these hurricanes do...

Head into the Gulf
of Mexico like Katrina,

or blow into the cold Atlantic
and fade harmlessly away

But then, a startling prediction
from 4,000 miles away

upends all expectations

A day even before
Sandy has been named,

the super computers at a
European weather center

predict that she will not
follow the normal course

Conventional wisdom said
that Sandy would move towards

the north because it
was in the Caribbean,

and then towards the northeast

And then it would
die and not affect land

But there were suggestions
that the hurricane

might not behave in a normal
way and might actually end up

over the northeast of the U S

NARRATOR: Worse than
that, the model goes on to predict

that once Sandy
reaches the Northeast,

it will make a sudden,
improbable left turn,

sending it straight into the
heart of the Jersey shore

and New York City

When the European Center
model came out eight days before,

I think the reaction was,

"This is a really
dangerous possibility,

"but it's so far in advance,

we're going to just
have to watch this"

NARRATOR: Now late in October,

with the hurricane
season drawing to a close,

New Yorkers are
preparing Halloween parties,

not thinking about a storm

But that's about to change

because the storm
with the innocent name

is about to ring their
doorbell dressed as a monster


Sandy is becoming a storm

to be reckoned with

Since her birth as a
tropical depression,

she has steadily
gathered energy,

fed by the warm tropical waters

On October 25, she
is officially upgraded

to a category-two hurricane
with sustained wind speeds

of more than 110 miles per hour

She has already
brought devastating winds

and fierce rains to
Haiti and Jamaica,

and now heads north
to Cuba and beyond

At this point, computer
models at NOAA,

the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration,

are still showing
several possible paths

ADAM SOBEL: The American
model, like all these models,

was run in an ensemble
mode where the models

run many times each day

And as late as Wednesday
or Thursday, the 24th or 25th,

the American model
had some tracks coming in

and making landfall, but
other tracks going out to sea

And by about Thursday or
Friday, the American model

started to agree more
with the European models,

and we became quite
confident that Sandy would make

the left turn and come
into the mid-Atlantic region

NARRATOR: Now, all
the models are converging,

forecasting that Sandy
will swing sharply around

from its northeast track
and crash into New York

and New Jersey, and
much of the East Coast

Parts of the coastlines of
New York and New Jersey

are only a few
feet above sea level

Strong winds could push
the ocean right onto the land,

causing extensive flooding

SOBEL: It was quite clear
that there was a possibility

of a very high storm
surge and that it could be

a catastrophic event

NARRATOR: The city's emergency
services... police, fire and hospitals...

Begin to prepare for the worst

We started on the
Thursday before the storm hit

People were checking
their equipment,

checking their pumps,

making sure our
boats were in order,

all the prep you
would do for a storm

NARRATOR: But
despite all the warnings,

there remain plenty of doubters

We thought they
were just amping it up

more than what it was, to
cover themselves, basically

We said, "Oh, yeah,
here comes another storm"

NARRATOR: Sandy heads
north out of the Caribbean,

leaving more than 70
dead and dozens missing

It is a massive system,

sending tropical storm-force
winds across an area

nearly 600 miles wide

Now, the first of many unusual
meteorological conditions

begin to affect the storm's path

There's a high-pressure system
that kind of lives over Bermuda

It's called the "Bermuda High"

And, generally
speaking, Atlantic systems

will kind of come along
the bottom side of that high,

and then kind of curve around it

and move its way back
out into the eastern Atlantic

NARRATOR: But this time,
there's no Bermudan High

to steer Sandy away from land,

so the storm heads
to the northeast,

parallel to the Eastern Seaboard

Though most of the
ocean gets colder,

Sandy feeds off a
ribbon of warm water

that keeps it alive:

the Gulf Stream,

a circulating current
that pumps warm water

from the Gulf of Mexico
up and across the Atlantic

And right now,

the surface waters are
even warmer than usual

RADLEY HORTON:
Parts of the North Atlantic

were five degrees
warmer than normal

And you could see as you
watched those satellite images,

as Sandy passed over
that unusually warm water,

it increased in strength

You could see new convection,
new thunderstorms forming

NARRATOR: Though Sandy is still
more than 200 miles off the U S coast,

storm-force waves and winds

have been pounding
Florida and North Carolina,

knocking out highways

At 5:00 a m on Sunday,

NOAA meteorologist
Dr. Alexander "Sandy" MacDonald

flies NOAA's P3 Orion right
into the heart of the hurricane

in order to get a firsthand look

at the anatomy of
the growing storm

We take a lot of measurements
that allow us to determine

what the hurricane
is going to do

Is it going to intensify?

Where is it going to go?

NARRATOR: When the
answers start to emerge,

the news is not good

Sandy is undergoing a
dangerous transformation

JEFF WEBER: Sandy is
rolling up the Eastern Seaboard,

feeding off of the
Gulf Stream waters

As we roll into the


Sandy is starting to expand

and lose its tropical
characteristics

NARRATOR: As they move
north into cooler waters,

most hurricanes begin to fade

But since these waters
are warmer than normal,

Sandy doesn't flag

Even worse, flying through
the heart of the hurricane,

Dr. MacDonald sees
something shocking...

Sandy is actually
growing in size

with the help of a second storm

MacDONALD: It had been a fairly
normal category-one hurricane,

but as it came north,

there was what
we call a nor'easter

NARRATOR: The
nor'easter is a winter storm

that has been developing inland,
parallel to Sandy's track north

MacDONALD: A nor'easter can be



NARRATOR: From his vantage
point inside the hurricane,

Dr. MacDonald can
see the two storms

morphing into a
hybrid, a superstorm

MACDONALD: It had the
big size, the huge rains,

and, right in the center of it, it
had those super strong winds

and super low pressure

It really was a combination
of the worst that nature

delivers in storms...
Two put together

NARRATOR: Sandy
is no longer a hurricane

that can fade and die as
the water temperature falls

It's become too big and powerful

Now, with Halloween
just days away,

news services have
given Sandy a new name,

"Frankenstorm"

Forecasters have found
a new word to describe

the potential impact
of Hurricane Sandy

on the East Coast

They're calling
it "Frankenstorm"

NARRATOR: In New
York, full-scale preparations

are under way for
a major hurricane hit

SALVATORE CASSANO: Sunday
morning, we were on a conference call

with the National
Weather Service

and the National
Hurricane Center

The tone of the report they
gave us on Sunday morning,

we sort of started to
realize this was going to be

as bad a storm as they
had predicted all along

[over truck loudspeaker]: The
Mayor of the City of New York

has ordered a
mandatory evacuation

of the island of Broad Channel

NARRATOR: Officials in
both New York and New Jersey

order a mandatory
evacuation of flood-prone areas,

but not everyone is
prepared to heed the warning

And many know just
what to blame for that:

Hurricane Irene

In August 2011, Hurricane
Irene hit New York

It was a powerful
and destructive storm,

but because it didn't inflict
as much damage as predicted,

it left New Yorkers skeptical

WEBER: I have family and friends

in the New York
and New Jersey area,

and they were asking
me, they said, you know,

"Is this going to be like Irene?

"Because we were fine with Irene

We didn't have any
problems with Irene"

I had to respond
to them, saying,

"No, this is much bigger

This is going to have a far
greater impact than Irene"

NARRATOR: For the skeptics,

Irene holds out
a false promise...

That city services,
like electric power,

could escape without disruption

JOHN MIKSAD: Irene
was sort of a dry run

Nothing... Not the
generation system,

not the transmission system,

not the substations nor
the distribution system

were impacted by
flood waters in Irene

NARRATOR: But any hopes that
the city would escape unscathed

this time around are
dashed when, at 7:00 p m,

the New York Transit Authority
system begins to shut down

The city's lifeline,
the subway, closes

It takes about 12 hours

to completely shut down the
New York City subway system

We did not want to bring
everybody into New York City

on Monday and strand them
here, so that's why we proposed

the beginning of a shutdown
of the subway system

on Sunday night at


were tied up and locked up
by 3:00 a m Monday morning

NARRATOR: 5,900 buses and 8,663
subway and rail cars are now parked


above and below ground,

are empty

Also within its complex network

are 14 underwater
subway tunnels,


if the water pours,

it doesn't come out

The city that never
sleeps is closing up shop

Sandy is now 425
miles from New York

The hybrid... two
storms in one...

Spreads tropical
storm-force winds

over more than 1,000 miles,

carrying the energy of
five Hiroshima bombs

Still traveling
parallel to the coast,

it runs headlong into
the most significant event

in its seven-day life,

a massive system
of high pressure

looming over the Atlantic

A so-called "blocking high"
or high pressure system

was forming out in the Atlantic

around the southern
end of Greenland,

and those blocking
highs prevent storms

from making their way out to sea

NARRATOR: But Sandy
does not simply grind to a halt

High in the atmosphere
are fast-moving winds

collectively called
the jet stream,

normally traveling west to east

But in this case, the jet stream

isn't following its normal
west-to-east course

Disrupted by the high
pressure system to the north

and the winter storm,
part of the jet stream

turns back toward the west

Most storms, as they get
about as far north as New Jersey,

especially this late in
the hurricane season,

are picked up by the jet
stream and moved to the east

This storm, it became
more and more clear,

was going to take
that turn to the west

that would bring millions
of people into harm's way

NARRATOR: Early on October 29,

the forecasters'
predictions come true

Sandy takes a sharp left

If there had been any
doubt, it's gone by now

Sandy will slam
into the East Coast

in a little more than 12
hours, right at high tide...

The worst possible timing

SOBEL: And at that point,
my scientific fascination

started to mix with
actual fear for the

for the fate of the

of the city and the
surrounding areas

We were certainly in a
heightened state of awareness

We had our emergency
response center running

We made sure that
all the flood gates

in our generating stations
and substations were prepared

I would say "anxious"
would probably be

a good description of
the of the mood in here

NARRATOR: Air traffic in and out

of New York and New
Jersey is grounded

Both states are
now being battered

by winds of 75 miles per hour

The New York Stock Exchange

closes for the first
time since 9/11

Even though the eye of
the storm is still 260 miles

from Atlantic City, 310
miles from New York,

the Battery promenade
in Lower Manhattan

is already under water

The sea level is already
three or four feet above normal

Monday morning, a full ten
or 12 hours before the storm

was forecast to make landfall,
you were already seeing

record-high flooding levels

throughout the
New York City region

NARRATOR: It's the beginning
of the powerful storm surge,

driven by the unrelenting winds

SOBEL: As the wind
pushes on the water,

if it pushes it
towards the shore,

then when the water
gets close to the coast,

where the bottom is shallow,
the water level gets raised,

and that's the storm surge

And that comes on top
of whatever the tide is

NARRATOR: The worry is
that if Sandy strikes at high tide,

the resulting storm surge
will overwhelm the city...

Particularly Lower Manhattan,

parts of which are less than
ten feet above sea level...

And do the same to a vast
expanse of the New Jersey shore

At around 11:00 a m,

veteran storm chaser
Scott McPartland

heads towards the Bronx

Back up a bit?

I want to go to one
of these side streets

We should go to
another vantage point

Try to get down there

Let's sh**t this way

Well, we first left the house
about 11:00 in the morning

on Monday, the day of the storm,

and we traveled right
up to Whitestone Queens,

right at the foot of the
Bronx Whitestone Bridge

When we got there,

the water was already
pouring over the sea wall

It was inundating neighborhoods

It was already in
people's backyards

Already in people's
homes at this point

When I saw this taking place,

and it was still so
early in the day,

and we knew that
the worst of the storm

was still many hours away,
that's when it really started

to set in that this storm
was really going to be as bad

as everybody said
it was going to be

NARRATOR: Exactly as predicted,
as Sandy gets closer to land,

it absorbs energy from
the high-altitude wind

of the jet stream

WEBER: And so, it went
from 18 miles an hour

to about 28 to 30 miles an hour

That speed increase
will increase the surge,

increase the waves,
increase the wind

and allow it to make
faster progress inland

NARRATOR: Within the
storm, wind speeds rise

to over 90 miles per
hour as Sandy accelerates

The monster drives
a surge of water

toward the New Jersey shore

and the five boroughs
of New York City

Scott is stationed in
low-lying Queens at 4:00 p m,

with five hours to go
before the peak of the storm

And even for him, the sudden
influx of water is alarming

Water at this point
at Rockaway Beach

was already hitting
the boardwalk

The storm surge
is winning already

It was the first time
that I can remember

that the ocean really scared me

Seeing the water in that
state, it was white water

You could feel the
entire boardwalk shaking

as you were standing on it

At this point, there were
still people, residents,

wandering on the

walking their dogs

I think, at this point, most
people did understand

how serious this was,
but there still seemed to be

a few that didn't get it

NARRATOR: Rockaway, a low-lying
area at the south end of Queens,

is within the evacuation zone

In late afternoon,
things begin to go wrong

for residents like
Shatisha Haywood

HAYWOOD: The lights
start to flicker on and off

Then they went off

They came back on,
then they went off again

They came back on,
and then, around 5:30,

they were completely
out and it was dark

NARRATOR: Her six
children are frightened

HAYWOOD: Because
it was just like,

"Mom, the lights went
off, turn the lights back on"

And I'm, like, "I can't
turn the lights back on"

NARRATOR: Near Rockaway Beach

is the Breezy
Point neighborhood,

perched on a narrow spit of land

The local volunteer fire
crew has spent several days

preparing to protect

those who would
not or could not leave

We had purchased food,
we had sleeping gear

Our plan was to hunker
down here and shelter in place

and make sure the trucks'
batteries, the water, gas,

everything was at prime

NARRATOR: But
despite their best efforts,

Breezy Point is about to become
one of the worst-hit casualties

of Sandy's fury when the storm
surge submerges the entire town

MAN: There it is,
huge storm surge!

Everybody, here we go!

Oh, my gosh, here it comes,
six inches of flood water!

INGRAM: At 5:30,
the tidal surge came,

and that was
two-and-a-half, three hours

before moon high tide,

and the water never
stopped coming

When I tell you
the storm hit, like

like a like a bolt of lightning,

it came down and it just
washed everything away

NARRATOR: As
water floods the town,

members of the fire department
urge residents to retreat

to the relative safety of
the local community center

But soon, that building
also begins to flood

We had a marble floor in there

It was bubbling up through
the seams by the marble

And we were three
hours away from high tide,

and we knew we were in
for an interesting evening

NARRATOR: All
across New York City,

the storm surge builds,

amplified by an
accident of geography

MALCOLM BOWMAN: Long
Island Sound is shaped like a funnel,

and the winds push this water
into western Long Island Sound

And that squirts through the
East River into New York Harbor

NARRATOR: The narrow
waterway concentrates the waves

that pound not only
Queens but the harbor

and especially Staten Island

On Fox Beach Avenue,

ex-Marine John Filipowicz
and his son, John Jr.,

have been feverishly
working to protect their home

John, Sr.'s brother Neil was
staying in touch by phone

NEIL FILIPOWICZ: I
spoke to him in the afternoon

I had asked him, "Do you
want me to come down?"

He's like, "No, it's all
right, I've got John here

I'll be okay"

He prepared his home for it

He not only sandbagged
the door downstairs;

he put expandable foam and
tape around the creases in the door

There was no way
the water was getting in

NARRATOR: But the
nightmare was just beginning

People in New York
City were experiencing

hurricane-force winds
for eight hours or more

Hurricane Sandy had an
expanse of about 1,000 miles

It was huge

It takes a long time

to move 1,000 miles
of weather across a city

NARRATOR: On the Rockaways,
the surge inundates the streets

HAYWOOD: It got darker,
the water started to rise,

and my 14-year-old son,
he came, and he said,

"Mom, the water
is over Dad's car"

So I'm, like, "No, the water
can't be over Dad's car"

When I looked out the window,

the water was over
my husband's car

You can hear people
screaming, "Help!"

It was like a nightmare,
like a pitch-black movie,

and they were
just yelling, "Help!"

You heard a young lady, and
you heard a couple of male voices,

and they were screaming, "Help!"

NARRATOR: With people
struggling in the dark,

power company
technicians who have been

anxiously monitoring
their systems

suddenly find the
entire grid in peril

Around 7:00 or


that they were being
overcome and that the water

was getting into the
underground system

NARRATOR: Most of
Manhattan's transmission lines

and many circuit breakers
are located belowground

Saltwater and electricity
are a dangerous mix

In order to prevent
electrical fires,

Con Ed makes a
brutally tough call

The power company
pulls the plug,

plunging much of
Lower Manhattan,

including Wall
Street, into darkness

Across the harbor,

in the close-knit Staten
Island community,

conditions continue
to deteriorate

MICHAEL CLARKE: I stayed

till about 7:30, 8:00,

tried moving cars up
a few blocks that way

By the time I came back
here to get dry clothes

out of the house, the water
was probably up to here on me

It was like a tidal
wave... Boom, in

NARRATOR: Michael
Clarke's parents,

Linda and Bob, live
just around the corner

They don't want to
abandon their home

We have two dogs
and a cat, and he said

oh, and chickens

He had two chickens, which
I think he's worried about

more than anything

But, uh

Doing the backstroke

He said, "I think we'll stay"

NARRATOR: By the
time Linda finally decides

to drive out on her
own, it's too late

I put the key in the
ignition, and I looked up

and I saw a wave of water
coming around Cedar Grove Avenue

And I said, "Oh, my God,"
and I went to get out of the car

because I realized it
wasn't going to start

And the wave hit the car,
and I had to push my way

out of the car because the water

was coming against the door

And I tried to make it
to the back of the house,

and the water was
pushing me away

I was screaming, and
Bob came running out

and he pulled me up,
helped me get up the stairs

He pulled me out of the water,
and we ran for the bedroom

because he said, "We
have to get in the attic,

we have to get in the attic"

NARRATOR: Linda and
Bob are not the only residents

fearing for their lives



are flooding the fire
department switchboard

Just dealing alone with Staten
Island would have been enough

for the department without
anything else going on

So that was another
point of concern for me

in that Staten Island
was really, really being,

you know, wiped out

I live on Staten Island,
so my family was there

NARRATOR: But on higher
ground, in parts of Brooklyn,

Sandy feels like a bad
storm, not a catastrophic k*ller

I was listening to the news and
hearing about what was coming

to the areas on the shore,

and realizing this seemed
like it was going to be

a substantial storm

But I didn't have
any real concerns

for our safety or comfort
where we were in Brooklyn

NARRATOR: When Jacob
Vogelman receives a call for help

from a friend, he
tells his mother

he's going to brave the
strong winds and rain

SIKOWITZ: When Jake said

he was going out... And
I knew, they kept saying

the peak of the storm
will be in 40 minutes...

I said, "Jake, I don't think
this is a really good time

to be going out"

And he said, "Well, Jessie
needs me to come over"

And that was it

Jessie needed him and he went

NARRATOR: The
storm is reaching its peak

Close to 8:00 p m on October 29,

the eye of the storm hits
Atlantic City, New Jersey,

bringing wind speeds of
more than 80 miles an hour

and waves higher than 40 feet

WEBER: Once the eye
makes its way onto land,

that's the most intense
part of the system

The eye wall is where all that
energy and wind energy is at

Atlantic City suffered
extreme damage,

severe storm surge
and monstrous flooding

And they also recorded
the lowest pressure

ever recorded in Atlantic
City, at 940 millibars

WOMAN: This is
worse than Katrina for us

This is we never went
through anything like this


water was up four feet

You're just watching
it come up each step

Unprecedented in my


in emergency
management in this county

A wind came through
here like I've never seen

Sounded like a train coming

And I had, like,
ten sliding doors

all in a line in the back

They all just exploded
from the wind,

like a b*mb went off

And then, minutes later,

the whole roof
went up in the air

It was like Wizard of Oz.

There was ten feet of
water all the way around me

There was just no
way for me to go

So, after the roof blew off
and then all the walls caved in,

the floor went down
into the basement,

I swam to that car
there that you see

and got inside of it

NARRATOR: Throughout the
region, people are finding themselves

in life-or-death situations

In the Rockaways,
Shatisha and her six children

are trapped by flood waters

She calls 9-1-1

We got a voicemail, and
it was saying, you know,

"Everybody's call is important,
you know, leave a message"

But I wasn't leaving no message

This is 9-1-1, and I know


So, I was able to get on Twitter

I was able to get on Twitter,
and, you know, I tweeted and,

you know, I was like, you know,

"A huge shout-out
to the F D N Y"

NARRATOR: At the Fire
Department Control Center,

Emily Rahimi runs social media

I was prepared to be
tweeting out safety information,

and I started getting a
lot of tweets from people

who said they did not
have phone service,

that they would
try calling 9-1-1,

and they'd have them
on there for a second

and then it would drop

A lot of them still had some
connectivity with their phones

to something like Twitter,
and so that was just their way

of reaching out somehow to
get to somebody to help them

NARRATOR: Shatisha's desperate
tweet appears on Emily's screen

I remember, she and her six
boys were trapped in their house

Flood waters were rushing
in, and she was really panicked

She didn't want to see
her children in danger

And I knew I had to
do something to help,

so I started calling fire
department dispatchers

to make sure they
had that information

NARRATOR: At 8:30 p m, the
Hudson River breaches its banks

and inundates the West
Side Highway in Manhattan

From there, it floods a
critical electrical substation

Saltwater hits the
cables carrying power

to a quarter million New Yorkers

[expl*si*n]

The result is cataclysmic

[expl*si*n]

MIKSAD: With that expl*si*n,

ten networks went
simultaneously,

which basically took out
everything from 34th Street

down to the Battery,
almost half of this island

NARRATOR: Lower
Manhattan goes dark

You would never think this
would happen in New York

So, the best way to deal
with it now is just not panic

People just got to stay civil

NARRATOR: By now,
three million people

in New York and New
Jersey are without power

As bad as conditions
are in Lower Manhattan,

the situation at Breezy
Point is far worse

For a still unknown reason,
a house bursts into flame

and fire quickly spreads

FAHY: The entire sky was just lit
up in the reddest, orangest color

you could ever imagine

I called my mom,

and she was
hysterical on the phone

She was like,
"Just say a prayer"

It was a very emotional time

I didn't know how I
was going to get out

NARRATOR: Meanwhile,
the volunteer firemen

are trapped by
ever-rising floodwaters

in their community center

They can do nothing
while their town burns

Parts of New York and New Jersey

are now under 14
feet of water or worse

Now, keep in mind that
on top of that storm surge,

you also have the wave
action, and there are waves

ten, 15 feet high in this storm

So there were parts of Manhattan
that were being impacted



NARRATOR: By now, the water
coursing across Lower Manhattan

is pouring into
the subway system

M T A Chief Jo Lohta
is powerless to stop

his beloved network
from being overwhelmed

LOHTA: This was
worse than my worst fear

The water from the Hudson River

was flowing down
into the Battery Tunnel

There were white rapids
flowing into the tunnel

And it sounded like a waterfall

It ended up, the
Brooklyn Battery tunnel,

each tunnel had 43
million gallons of water,

over 6,000 feet,

more than a mile
filled with water,

floor to ceiling, side to side,

completely filled
up, all the way

NARRATOR: At the fire
department command post,

calls for help continue to
come in from every direction

I've got a six-alarm
fire in Breezy Point,

I've got tons of people
trapped in the water,

I've got a fire on City Island,

I've got people in
Gerritsen Beach

calling that they're trapped,

I've got people in Lower
Manhattan that have no power

NARRATOR: At 9:00 p m, as
the peak of the surge finally passes

and the waters begin to recede,

the Breezy Point firefighters
manage to make their way

back to their flooded station

where, at last,
they catch a break

Miraculously, even though
these trucks were under water,

they did start up

Once we started driving,

the firemen stayed
with the trucks

and we started
rescuing other people

I saw the flashlight
going back and forth

They were, like, "The
fire is coming this way

"You need to get out of here

It's not safe anymore"

When I finally got
up to the firehouse,

my dad was up there,

and he just saw me and
grabbed me and didn't let go

NARRATOR: In Rockaway,
firefighters alerted by her tweets

rescue Shatisha
Hayward and her children

Her desperate husband finally
manages to get through to her

HAYWARD: I said,
"We're safe, we're fine,

we're on a boat"

And he was, like, "A boat?

What do you mean,
you're on a boat?"

And we joke a lot, so
he basically was like,

"Shatisha, I'm really not
playing with you at this time"

So, I kept saying
to myself, I'm, like,

"Babe, I'm really not joking

"Like, I'm so serious

We're on a boat"

NARRATOR: In Ocean City,
Guy Ferraro has been trapped

in his flooded car
for nearly five hours

You knew the tide was going out,

and by then my legs
were completely numb

I couldn't feel them at all

I was only in
pajamas at that point

I waited until I saw
the police lights

And I knew that I couldn't
stand the cold too much longer,

and I knew I could
get across that road

I was certain I could get
across that road by that time

Because it was just bedlam
here, people screaming

for hours and hours and
hours for help, you know

NARRATOR: The emergency services

are now receiving 20,000


In Staten Island, Michael
Clarke has heard nothing

from his parents for hours

The water has made reaching
them by foot or by car impossible

I called my friend Brian

I said, "Brian, have
you got a boat?

Get something, do
something, get down here"

It was dark

We couldn't see anything

We had one little flashlight,
and I kept saying to Bob,

"Bob, is the water
coming up more?"

Because I was afraid that it
was going to come up so high

and there was no
way out of the attic

But he kept saying,

"No, no, Linda, it's
not coming up, it's not"

I go, "Bob, I think
it's going to come up,

and we're going to drown"

Banging on my mother's
door and hearing their voice,

it was like hitting the lottery

My mother looked at me and said,

"What the hell are
you doing here?"

So

I just started
crying, hysterical

I just

I said, "You're nuts, Michael

What are you doing here?"

He said, "I come
to get you and Mom

You didn't call"

I said, "How am I going to call?

"The phone's broke

I drowned it"

That was that

I mean, what else could you do?

It's something anybody
would do for their parents, right?

NARRATOR: Just before
dawn, nearly 300 firefighters

are finally able to
converge on Breezy Point

But in the cruelest of ironies,
they discover that low pressure

in the fire hydrants has
left them desperately short

of the one thing
they need most, water

They stand by and watch
as more than 100 houses

burn to the ground

When the sun rises on
Tuesday, October 30,

large parts of New Jersey,
New York and Long Island

are like w*r zones, with
damage extending up and down

the Eastern Seaboard

The death toll will reach


more than 70 who lost
their lives in the Caribbean

[siren wailing]

FEMALE TV REPORTER: When daylight
came, the severe and widespread damage

from Hurricane Sandy
was painfully clear

Nothing's going on

No traffic lights

No, you know, no street lights

Just there's cops everywhere

There's just debris and
wetness everywhere

NARRATOR: Ships have
been tossed onto land,

houses driven from
their foundations

MAN: You can see
the foundation right here

You can see everything
underneath here

All the water, the
pipes broke up there

NARRATOR: More than eight
million people are without power

The Jersey shore,
where, for decades,

millions have enjoyed
spending the summer,

has been virtually wiped out

Eight counties have already
been declared disaster areas


refuge in emergency shelters

On Staten Island, Neil
Filipowicz finally makes his way

to Fox Beach Avenue

He's been trying unsuccessfully
to reach his big brother, Flip,

and nephew, John

They had chosen not to evacuate
in order to protect their home

FILIPOWICZ: I was
going to yell at him

for not calling anybody to
let us know that he was okay

You know, I was

I'm like, you know, here we are,

everyone's trying to
get in touch with him,

phones aren't working,
no one's answering,

they're going right to voicemail

NARRATOR: Across
New York and New Jersey,

landlines and mobile
phone towers are down,

so when he finally arrives,

he's unprepared for the
chilling scene before him

The wall on one
side was pushed in

All the cinder blocks were
missing of the foundation,

and I saw the water

And I said, "Wow, this
house got really destroyed"

I made my way
down to the basement,

and it was completely
pitch black down there

I was calling him, but I
didn't have a flashlight,

and, like I said, it
was completely dark

NARRATOR: But there was
no sign of his brother or nephew

In Brooklyn, Marcia Sikowitz
had also been searching for hours

trying to reach her son Jake

Jake had never returned

from going out to
help his friend Jessie

I just started calling his
cell phone every 15 minutes,

which I knew didn't
make a whole lot of sense,

but I didn't know
what else to do

And, um finally, a man
answered his phone,

and I said, "Where's my son?"

I thought maybe he had
been mugged or, you know,

why was this man
answering his phone?

I said, "Where is my son?"

And he said, "What's
your address?"

And I said, "Where's my son?"

And he said, "This
is Detective Simon

Tell me your address; I am
coming over to your apartment"

NARRATOR: A short time
later, five officers arrive,

bearing the worst possible news

Jake and his best friend
Jessie were k*lled by a falling tree

at 7:45 the previous evening

The emergency services
were so overwhelmed,

they hadn't reached their
bodies for nearly 12 hours

SIKOWITZ: One
of my neighbors said

there was a disturbance
in the Force...

You know, the Force of
goodness of Jake and Jessie

Somehow, there
was a disturbance,

like God looked
away for a second

and something terrible happened

NARRATOR: Neil Filipowicz
has still had no luck tracking down

his brother and nephew

Neil returns to his brother's
damaged home for another look

Like I said, when I came
in, I didn't get very far,

and I panned from
this way here around

with the good
flashlight that I had

I went to the left, and I saw
in this area right here a hand

And I was praying, "Please
let that be a doll's hand"

I reach in with my right
hand, and I pulled up,

and I could see
my brother's face,

and right behind it
was my nephew's

And they came up
together out of the water,

and I see my brother
had his other hand,

his right hand, around his back

And my nephew was
holding him around the waist

with his head buried,
like in his chest

I can only think that they
knew they were going to die,

and they just grabbed
ahold of each other and,

you know, to say,
you know, "I got you"

NARRATOR: John left
behind his wife Christine

and their two surviving children

[helicopter blades whirring]

At Breezy Point, residents
estimate more than 100 homes

have been consumed by fire

Debris and sand are everywhere

Yet, incredibly, not a
single person has died,

thanks in part to
the heroic efforts

of the local fire volunteers

MARTY INGRAM: Pulling up
to the scene on the south edge

and seeing the
flames just in the sky

and then walking into the fire

that that

that memory will never leave

And seeing my men, you know,
just unrestrained and motivated,

without any fear and
so dedicated to others

and not themselves,
it's so, so outstanding

I'm so proud of them

NARRATOR: Transportation
infrastructure has been crippled

Seven subway tunnels
are flooded to the roof,

six bus garages are underwater

LHOTA: We didn't know,
at that point, we had no idea

of the severity of the situation

We knew it was bad, we
just didn't know how bad it was

NARRATOR: The Army Corps of
Engineers is called in to help the city

pump hundreds of
millions of gallons of water

Engineers set out to assess
the severity of damage

caused by the
corrosive saltwater

MATTHEW ALBANESE:
You have to understand

saltwater is brine,
it eats up everything

All the signal equipment
is going to have to be

taken out, dried, tested

The wires that were on the side
of the tunnel walls and whatnot,

just cooked

All that you saw was bare
copper when you came down here

You had that smell of diesel
fuel, human waste, everything

It was like a cornucopia
of rotten smells

NARRATOR: Saltwater has
destroyed parts of the electric grid,

making repair work
unusually hazardous

MIKSAD: It's dangerous
work on a blue sky day

I mean, these folks are
working with high voltage,

high pressure, high
temperature, heavy machinery

It is dangerous work on any day

When you have these
hazards that are superimposed

on the routine
hazards, it is just

It can be a very
dangerous combination

NARRATOR: It will take
days for Con Ed crews

to bring power back to the city

Some places will be without
electric power for weeks

[bell ringing]

However, the stock
exchanges manage to open

two days after Sandy, thanks
to emergency generators

Not just the city, but the
entire region is reeling

It's getting cold and
many homes have no heat

Food deliveries are a problem,

and gasoline will
have to be rationed

Subway engineers work
around the clock to restore service

LHOTA: The subway
system is relatively simple...

Staircase, hole in the
ground, another staircase,

and it just keeps
going and going

so we can make the city as
mobile and move everyone around

as quickly as we possibly can

NARRATOR: Finally, on Friday,
fully four days after the storm,

Con Ed turns on the
lights in Lower Manhattan

Life begins to return to normal

But harder hit areas,
like the New Jersey shore

and Staten Island, will
take far longer to recover

Still, the city and the world
begin to ask, what's next?

Was this truly a
once-in-a-100-year storm,

or is it the beginning
of things to come?

Did global warming
influence the path or severity

of this nearly
unprecedented storm?

Experts agree that Sandy
followed a highly unusual track

Typically, the powerful jet
stream pushes hurricanes

eastward and out to sea,
but Sandy turned hard left

and headed west into the
most densely populated region

of the continent

One obvious culprit was a
strong high-pressure system

over the Atlantic,

associated with a disturbed
and wavy jet stream

With a wavier jet stream,
it's easier for a storm

to stagnate or even turn towards
the west, towards the coast,

which is what
happened with Sandy

NARRATOR: The shape of
the jet stream is influenced

by the temperature difference
between the warm atmosphere

at the Earth's equator and
the cold air at the North Pole

But Arctic temperatures
have been rising twice as fast

as temperatures over
the rest of the globe,

and some recent studies
have found an association

between a wavier jet stream
and those rising temperatures

So, did a warmer Arctic set
the stage for Sandy to turn?

Most scientists say it's
too soon to know for sure

HORTON: What we can say, though,

is that there's a lot of
evidence suggesting

if you remove
ice from the Arctic,

you see a wavier jet stream
of the type that makes it easier

for weather systems like
Sandy to turn towards the west

instead of getting
deflected towards the east

NARRATOR: Right now, we
can't blame Sandy's fateful turn

directly on global warming,
and neither is it clear

whether global warming
is affecting the frequency

of these destructive storms

As some models
show, any relationship

between global warming
and hurricanes is complicated

And in those models,

what happens as the
climate warms is that

the number of hurricanes
actually is more likely

to decrease than increase,
but, at the same time,

the hurricanes that there
are become more intense

So, right now, our
models are predicting

that hurricanes in a
warmer climate will become

fewer but more intense

NARRATOR: But there
is one undeniable factor

that does relate directly
to global warming

and contributed to
Sandy's destructiveness...

Sea level

The water in the ocean is
warmer than it used to be,

and warm water
takes up more volume

Warmer seas are higher seas

Add to this melting
ice at the poles

What we do know is
that as the climate warms,

the sea level will rise

It's already risen around
a foot in the last 100 years

in the New York area

We don't know exactly how
fast the sea level will rise,

but we know for
certain that it will rise

It could be as
much as several feet

in the next century

NARRATOR: And that
means decades from now

a storm like Sandy would
be even more devastating

As you raise those
average sea levels,

it's like raising the floor
of a basketball court

If you don't change
the height of the rims,

you're going to get more
slam dunks just because

that average sea
level has gotten higher

NARRATOR: This
will force coastal cities

all over the world to consider
hardening their infrastructure,

transportation, electrical
and emergency services,

and possibly to
spend billions of dollars

on protective barriers
like storm gates

I think that Sandy was
a huge wakeup call,

not just for New York
City but for the U S

Sea levels are rising

We're going to see more
coastal flood events in the future

NARRATOR: For those
who survived this storm,

that cannot be welcome news

CLARKE: I tell you right
now, even before this,

my outlook on it...
Mother Nature rules

That's one thing you
don't screw with, the water

Water, wind it all rules over us

I don't know if we
could go through

what we just went through again

It is enough for a lifetime

I see that wave coming
around the corner every night

when I go to sleep

And it's just not a good feeling

NARRATOR: As time passes,
hurricane names get reused,

except for those whose
deadly legacy is carved

into the history books

There will never be another
hurricane named Sandy