Verizon Headquarters Flooded Hurricane Sandy

Related : NYC Hurricane Sandy - Hospital Evacuations and Berger Commission #EPICFAIL

Superstorm Sandy may have done damage to all the major phone services, more or less. But for Verizon, there was another price to pay: damage to its New York corporate headquarters.

The picture above, tweeted by the company itself, shows the Verizon lobby at 140 West Street in Manhattan, filled with three feet of water at about 9:30 PM ET last night. It isn’t just an administrative building — it also serves hundreds of thousands of voice and data circuits in New York.

Says Verizon director of media relations Bill Kula: “We’ll continue to work safely and quickly to pump out the storm water, re-route traffic from non working central office to others, get backup generator power operating, and hope that the local power company can restore commercial power as quickly as possible.”

Read more : Hurricane Sandy floods Verizon's corporate headquarters in New York City

Salt Water Corrosive Damage NYC Hurricane Sandy

Salt water damage is expected to damage the fragile, ancient electrical and switching systems of the New York City subway system. The Wall Street Journal published examples of some ways that salt water can damage the subway system :

Salt can eat at motors, metal fasteners and the electronic parts, some many decades old, that keep the system running. Salt water, and the deposits it leaves behind, degrades the relays that run the signal system, preventing train collisions.

Salt water also conducts electricity, which can exacerbate damage to signals if the system isn't powered down before a flood.

But the engineering risks don't just exist for the New York City subway system, but also to the construction materials of buildings, which were exposed to storm surge flooding.

Construction materials made of iron or steel that are exposed to water will rust and alter its shape and size. Building interiors, especially basements, when exposed to water, must be dried, otherwise constructions materials, such as metal fasteners or iron or steel beams, may continue to corrode long after the storm surge flooding subsides. If long-term moisture continues untreated, or if the ground becomes over-saturated by salt water, creating , the oxidation and rusting may cause construction materials made of iron and steel to fail.

Just like consumer affairs agencies advise drivers to avoid buying flood-damaged cars, what is the New York City Department of Buildings doing to secure the integrity of buildings and construction sites, which were exposed to the corrosive salt water storm surge flooding from Hurricane Sandy ?

JetBlue La Guardia Hurricane Sandy Update

Photographs showing the state of flooding on the runways and taxi areas at La Guardia Airport were posted by JetBlue on its blog today. One alarming photograph shows that the taxi areas around La Guardia Airport are underwater.

Glad I made it out of NYC Sunday at 11 pm on last AA flight out! Picture from LGA today by JetBlue #sandy twitter.com/vincentlaforet…

— Vincent Laforet (@vincentlaforet) October 30, 2012

Jackson Heights Hurricane Sandy Initial Damage Photographs

Related : Related : Hurricane Sandy - Political Accountability For Hospital Evacuations

Related : NYC Hurricane Sandy - Hospital Evacuations and Berger Commission #EPICFAIL

Initial Jackson Heights - Hurricane Sandy Damage Photographs

On Tuesday morning, residents of Jackson Heights, Queens, tried to assess the damage to their neighborhood from the rain and wind gusts from Hurricane Sandy. The local Starbucks was closed, and local people looked disoriented and desperate for over-priced coffee.

There were some downed trees.

Nobody knows when the New York City subway system will re-open. Many subway tunnels are flooded from the storm surge.

The seemingly minor damage in some parts of Jackson Heights was met with gratitude by residents. People in other parts of Queens and the rest of New York City were not so fortunate.

Now that Hurricane Sandy has moved on, the recovery efforts will get underway.

Hurricane Sandy TIMELAPSE - 1 DAY - NEW YORK CITY

NYC MTA Subway Flooding Disaster Update : Worst Disaster in Subway History

Joseph J. Lhota, Chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, issued a statement, describing the flooding from Hurricane Sandy as the worst "disaster" in the New York City subway system's history, The New York Times reported.

Mr. Lhota's statement included details of some of the worst damage to the mass transit system :

• As of last night, seven subway tunnels under the East River flooded. Metro-North Railroad lost power from 59th Street to Croton-Harmon on the Hudson Line and to New Haven on the New Haven Line.
• The Long Island Rail Road evacuated its West Side Yards and suffered flooding in one East River tunnel.
• The Hugh L. Carey Tunnel is flooded from end to end and the Queens Midtown Tunnel also took on water and was closed. Six bus garages were disabled by high water.

NYC East River Subway Tunnels Flooded

Updated ! NYC MTA Subway Flooding Disaster Update : Worst Disaster in Subway History

We can confirm that there has been water infiltration into the New York City Subway tunnels under the East River. We cannot confirm a depth.

— MTA (@MTAInsider) October 30, 2012

Hoboken PATH Subway Station Flooded

Flood waters rush in to the Hoboken PATH station through an elevator shaft. #Sandy twitter.com/PANYNJ/status/…

— Port Authority NY&NJ (@PANYNJ) October 30, 2012

Emergency Situation At Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant in Toms River, NJ

From The New York Times :

Dangerous Water Levels at Nuclear Plant

Rising water threatened the cooling system at the Oyster Creek nuclear plant, in Toms River, N.J., on Monday night. The plant declared an alert at 8:45 p.m., which is the second-lowest level of the four-tier emergency scale established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The water level was more than six feet above normal. At seven feet, the plant would lose the ability to cool its spent fuel pool in the normal fashion, according to Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The plant would probably have to switch to using fire hoses to pump in extra water to make up for evaporation, Mr. Sheehan said, because it could no longer pull water out of Barnegat Bay and circulate it through a heat exchanger, to cool the water in the pool.

If ordinary cooling ceased, the pool would take 25 hours to reach the boiling point, he said, giving the operators ample time to take corrective steps. The reactor itself has been shut since Oct. 22 for refueling, so it is relatively cool.

Alerts are declared a handful of times every year among the 104 power reactors around the country.

So far, no reactors in Sandy’s path have been forced by the hurricane to shut down, although one in Waterford, Conn., Millstone 3, has lowered its power output to 75 percent. The operator said this was done to assist the New England grid, which would be destabilized if the reactor shut down suddenly from full power, and also to reduce the chance that it would automatically shut down; at 75 percent, Millstone 3 could withstand the loss of a pump without having to close.

Several other reactors in the region are now closed for refueling, which is ordinarily carried out in the spring or fall, when electricity demand is low.

Separately, FOX News reported about safety concerns with the nuclear power plant at Indian Point.

NYU Langone Hospital Evacuated

Hurricane Sandy Exposes Risks Of Closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.

From 1010 WINS : NYU Langone Hospital being evacuated after backup generator dies.

Patients are being taken down manually down flights of stairs and are expected to be transferred to Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan.

Because NYU Langone Hospital has no electricity or phone service, they cannot notify the relatives or emergency contact persons of the NYU Langone Hospital's patients until the patients are received by a new hospital, WNBC has reported.

Bellevue Hospital Taking On Water

Hurricane Sandy Exposes Risks Of Closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.

FDNY Manhattan scanner: Multiple people in the water @ ConEd Plant. Bellevue Hospital taking on water. Lower Man. flooded no power. #Sandy

— Lord Burghley (@Lord_Burghley) October 30, 2012

Murray Hill Flooded Near Bellevue Hospital Hurricane Sandy

Related : NYC Hurricane Sandy - Hospital Evacuations and Berger Commission #EPICFAIL

Hurricane Sandy Exposes Risks Of Closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.

Bellevue Hospital Without Power ; Backup Generators Failing Due to Floods ; No Level I Trauma Center Below Midtown Since St. Vincent's Hospital Was Converted Into Luxury Condos By Rudin Family.

Bellevue hospital can't get the generators running, 2 ft water in the basement -- FDNY scanner

— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) October 30, 2012

The area near Bellevue Hospital in Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan is flooded. According to this Twitter posting, 34th Street and First Avenue is under water.

Unbelievable. Be safe friends. RT @shamir_kNot just lower Manhattan - this is 34th and 1st i104.photobucket.com/albums/m166/ow… (Murray Hill...)

— Emily Kuhn (@EmKuhn) October 30, 2012

East Village Explosion Hurricane Sandy

A transformer possibly exploded in the East Village of Manhattan during the landfall of Hurricane Sandy.

Huge explosion just rocked the East Village, everything went dark and I mean dark.#Sandy I'm now legit scared. twitter.com/buckyturco/sta…

— Bucky Turco(@buckyturco) October 30, 2012

911 ECTP Tech System Overwhelmed During Hurricane Sandy

WNBC reports that the 911 tech system is overwhelmed, that people are being discouraged from calling 911 unless it is truly a real emergency. This hurricane is doing a lot of damage. Would not all the damage taking place during a massive natural disaster be considered a real emergency (911 Call System Overloaded As City Urges People to Stay Off the Roads * DNAinfo New York)

Trees are falling, the façade of one building has collapsed, one fatality has been reported, and blackouts and massive floods have been widely reported. What isn't an emergency ?

Con Edison Cuts Power to 6,500 Lower Manhattan Customers

Apparent explosion of Con Edison substation or electrical equipment due to destruction from Hurricane Sandy.

According to WCBS News, Con Edison has cut electricity to 6,500 customers in Lower Manhattan.

.@conedison preemptively shutting off two underground networks in Manhattan--Bowling Green and Fulton Street networks in Lower Manhattan.

— Scott M. Stringer (@scottmstringer) October 29, 2012