美国有线新闻 CNN 2012-11-01

Catastrophic, historic, unthinkable, those are some of the words being used to describe the impact of the storm named Sandy that hit the U.S. on Monday. Now, whenthat happened, when it made landfall, it wasn’t a hurricane, it was technically 1 a post tropical storm, because energy was coming from a different source. Whatever you want to call it, Sandy was very, very dangerous. Flooding brought on by Sandy’s wind and rain and the storm surge, the waves that were created along the coast. Some towns in New Jersey 2 were under four or five feet of water. Floodwaters rushed into New York City subway tunnels as well. Sandy is being blamed for at least 30 deaths across the U.S. And this, that’s a power transformer that blew in New York. Nearly eight million people lost power because of Sandy, and some officials said it could be out for days. 

That kind of gives you an idea about how strong Sandy’s winds were. And so does this, the smoke you are seeing there, the front of the building just collapsed 3, apparently 4 from the wind. You might wonder how wind can be that strong. And it could have something to do with where this thing hit. Tom Foreman breaks down the science. 

As the winds of Hurricane Sandy have spread out over hundreds of miles, the estimate of how much damage they can do has also grown to $7 billion. How is that possible from wind alone? Well, we’ve sliced up hurricane Erin here into layers to show you what, look at the bottom down there. You see all that red, that’s where the wind is the most intense. As you move up in the storm, it becomes less intense once you get several miles in the air, but all of the tallest buildings on the east coast fit right done in that red zone, and in as strange way, they actually make the storm more ferocious 5 for the people who are living there. Let me show you why. If you have an air flow passing over an empty field or perhaps low buildings, it can do so largely unimpeded. But once you introduce something like New York City to the equation here, you change everything, because now the air has to speed up to get around all those buildings and maintain its air flow to go over those buildings, and that magnifies three things that are very dangerous about hurricane winds. First of all, it makes them more explosive. In aerospace 6 terms, whenever an airflow hit’s a square or rectangular object, it creates what’s called turbulent flow. In simple layman’s terms, that means the air becomes all roiled 7 up and it starts pounding against itself and against other objects, and it simply becomes more violent. 

Secondly 8, in hurricanes, you are always talking about sustained winds, winds that will continue not for a few minutes, but for hour after hour, grinding away, looking for weak spots around doors or windows or the cornices of roofs.

And thirdly, you are talking about directional wind. That means it’s always going to be attacking from the same direction. So if it finds that weak spot, it’s going to exploit it, because it just keeps yanking away at it without letting up. All of that comes together in this terrible witch’s brew 9 for the cities of the east coast in the winds of Sandy. 

With storms like Sandy, you expect strong winds and heavy rain, but the different effects of this storm almost unbelievable. Water. We mentioned flooding in New York subway. This is what it looked like. And those water levels won’t go down on their own. That water is going to have to be pumped out. Fire. This one broke out in a neighborhood in New York. Sandy’s winds helped it spread. At least 80 homes were destroyed by the flames. Snow. Sandy spawned 10 a blizzard 11 in West Virginia. Parts of Maryland and North Carolina were hit with heavy snow as well. This is what part of the Jersey shore looked like yesterday. Rows of houses damaged or destroyed by the storm. And along flooded roads, rescue crews are out in boats and trucks. Some people had to wait on their roof for rescuers to arrive. Relief organizations are working to get help to the victims of this storm. You can help that too. Go to the Spotlight 12 section at cnnstudentnews.com and look for the impact your world link to find out how.