LIVE: 'The time for preparing is over'

Flooding has begun as Sandy mounts its attack on the US east coast. Picture: AP Source: AP

"Superstorm" Hurricane Sandy threatening 50 million people
Heart of storm tracking for New York City
High winds expected, fears of widespread flooding
Qantas flights cancelled | Sandy's massive size
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HURRICANE Sandy is threatening 50 million people on the heavily populated East Coast of the United States as forecasters warn that New York could bear the brunt of the one-of-a-kind superstorm.

Live updates, photos, news and alerts will be posted here as they come to hand.

3.36am: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is curtailing his campaign schedule as Hurricane Sandy bears down on the Eastern seaboard, canceling planned appearances Monday night and all day Tuesday.

Campaign officials say vice presidential running mate Paul Ryan will also scrap campaign rallies during the same time frame.

The decision was announced a short while after President Barack Obama canceled a planned rally in Florida to fly back to Washington, where aides said he would oversee the government's response to the threat posed by the storm.

Romney intends to go ahead with speeches today in Ohio and Iowa before he begins observing his self-imposed storm-related moratorium on campaigning.

The former Massachusetts governor and Obama are locked in a close race, eight days before Election Day.

3.18am: Mayor Bloomberg says it is becoming "too late" to get away from floods from Hurricane Sandy as winds and sea levels rose.

Bloomberg issued a mandatory evacuation order for 375,000 people in zones at risk of floods but few have left their homes in the mainly sea-front districts.

"Conditions are deteriorating very rapidly and the window for getting out safely is closing," Bloomberg told a press conference. "It's getting too late to leave," he added.

Bloomberg said there were 16,000 beds in emergency shelters set up in 76 schools across New York but only 3,000 people and 73 pets had spent Sunday night there.

The mayor said there could be a storm surge of 11-12 feet (3.3-3.6 meters) in southern Manhattan late Monday. The evening high tide could bring waves of 15 to 20 feet (4.5-6.0 meters).

All public transport has been suspended in New York because of the major storm, some major roads in Manhattan had already been closed and two of the three Manhattan island road tunnels were to close at 1800 GMT.

Meanwhile, the New York MTA has posted some amazing pictures of the deserted subway system here.

2.53am: Hurricane Sandy is now the largest tropical storm ever recorded on the northeast coast of North America, Bloomberg News reports. It quotes Rob Carolan, a meteorologist at Hometown Forecast Services Inc. in Nashua, New Hampshire, saying: "The storm is the largest tropical storm in the Atlantic."

Mr Carolan adds: "So many bad things had to come together all at once. It is going to make the 'Perfect Storm' look small. It's remarkable what an impact this is going to have."

2.46am: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced schools will be closed for a second day on Tuesday.

With mass transit expected to remain shut through Tuesday morning, city public schools will remain closed on Tuesday, Mayor Bloomberg said.

"There's no chance that mass transit will be back in time to serve people," he added.

Watch his full update here:

2.35am: The US National Weather Service is reporting 24-foot seas off New Jersey.

2.26am: US President Barack Obama will make televised statement on Hurricane Sandy at 3.45am AEDT.

2.24am: Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley has said fatalities are inevitable as Hurricane Sandy bears down on the Mid-Atlantic state with all its force.

"Hurricane Sandy is going to come over Maryland, she's going to sit on top of Maryland and beat down on Maryland for a good 24 to 36 hours," he told reporters at the Maryland emergency coordination headquarters.

"This is going to be a long haul," he said. "The days ahead are going to be difficult. There will be people who die and are killed in this storm."

Mr O'Malley warned of "very high winds" by early Monday afternoon, lengthy power outages in the afternoon and evening, and severe flooding in the countless rivers and streams that feed into the Chesapeake Bay.

Ocean City, on Maryland's easternmost Atlantic coast, is already being lashed by a combination of wind, rain and "very heavy surf," with the resort town's pier sustaining heavy damage, the governor said.

The mandatory evacuation of downtown Ocean City has been completed, he said, and "there are few if any residents left in the town."

2.18am: Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia said on Monday morning that about 150 people had checked into the city's three emergency shelters. Occupants include adults, children, dogs, cats, a turtle and a spider, he said. Read the New York Times' report here.

2.16am: Forecasters say Hurricane Sandy has picked up a little strength and is making a turn toward a projected landfall on or near the southern coast of New Jersey.

The National Hurricane Centre said the storm's top sustained winds had risen to near 150km/h, with higher gusts. The storm's centre is about 415km south-southeast of New York City and expected to make landfall Monday evening or night along or just south of the southern New Jersey coast.

Reminder - you can see the action live from webcams at Times Square, Wall St and Brooklyn Bridge

1.52am: New York state authorities have ordered the closure of two of three key Manhattan road tunnels because of the risk of floods from Hurricane Sandy.

Governor Andrew Cuomo said the Holland and Battery tunnels would close from 2pm (5am AEDT). He told a press conference the predicted flood levels from the looming hurricane were "really extraordinary".

Norfolk resident Jack Devnew looks at the water covering a dock as he checks on his boat at a marina near downtown Norfolk, Virginia. Picture: AP Source: AP

1.39am: US President Barack Obama has landed at Andrews Air Force base outside Washington after cancelling campaign events to steer the response to Hurricane Sandy.

Mr Obama touched down after a flight from Florida, an AFP photographer aboard Air Force One said, after the president ditched plans to hold a campaign event with former president Bill Clinton, eight days before election day.

1.29am: Almost 9000 flights have been cancelled so far as a result of Hurricane Sandy, according to the information service flightaware.com.

1.20am: The US Coast Guard has rescued 14 members of a crew forced to abandon the tall ship HMS Bounty caught in Hurricane Sandy off the North Carolina Outer Banks and continued the search for two other crew members.

Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Brandyn Hill said the crew members were rescued by two Coast Guard helicopters around 6.30 am local time Monday. The survivors were being taken to Air Station Elizabeth City on the North Carolina coast. He had no immediate word on their conditions.

The director of the HMS Bounty Organisation, Tracie Simonin, said the tall ship had left Connecticut last week en route for St Petersburg, Florida.

"They were staying in constant contact with the National Hurricane Centre," she said. "They were trying to make it around the storm."

Petty Officer Hill said an MH60 Jayhawk helicopter from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, arrived at 6.30am and rescued nine crew members who had donned survival suits and boarded 25-foot life boats. They abandoned ship after the HMS Bounty began taking on water and lost propulsion in the storm. A second helicopter arrived a short time later and rescued five other members of the crew.

1.02am: Reporters aboard Air Force One say US President Barack Obama has cancelled a campaign event scheduled for Tuesday in Green Bay, Wisconsin, to focus on Hurricane Sandy.

12.58am: Google has produced a live map which shows the storm's path, the location of evacuation centres and even local traffic conditions.

12:56am: "This is the worst-case scenario," Louis Uccellini, environmental prediction chief for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told the Associated Press.

12.41am: Forecasters say Hurricane Sandy is about 505 kilometres south-southeast of New York City, and the centre of the storm is expected to be near the mid-Atlantic coast on Monday night.

The US National Hurricane Centre said early Monday local time that the storm has top sustained winds of 140km/h, with higher gusts. It is moving toward the north-northwest at 32km/h. Hurricane-force winds extend up to 280 km from the storm's centre.

Sandy is on track to collide with a wintry storm moving in from the west and cold air streaming down from the Arctic.

Major metropolitan areas from Washington to Boston are bracing for what is expected to be a superstorm that could menace some 50 million people in the most heavily populated corridor in the US.

12.23am: Reuters reports that at least 14 of the 17 sailors aboard the abandoned HMS bounty have been rescued off the coast of North Carolina. The crew were rescued using helicopters, the director of the vessel told the news agency.

12.17am: Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy says his state is bracing for a sea surge of up to 11 feet higher than a normal high tide. "This is the most catastrophic event that we have faced and been able to plan for in any of our lifetimes. And we continue to do anything in our power to be ready," he said.

President Barack Obama has cancelled all engagements and flown home to Washington to monitor the storrm's progress. Picture: AP Source: AP

12.13am: Water has breached the seawall at Battery Park City in lower Manhattan, pictures on CNN have shown. A reporter at the scene said he was standing in five inches of water on the boardwalk at the mouth of the Hudson River.

11.35pm: Global markets started the week on a downbeat note as investors fretted over the cost of a mammoth storm that was heading towards the eastern US and prompted the closure of Wall Street, the Associated Press reports.

"The economic impact cannot be underestimated," said Elsa Lignos, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets.

Insurers such as Munich Re, Aviva PLC and Zurich Insurance underperformed other stocks as investors worried about the potential cost of the storm's damage.

They weighed on indexes across Europe. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 0.6 per cent at 5768 while Germany's DAX fell 0.8 per cent to 7178. The CAC-40 in France was 1 per cent lower at 3400.

The New York Stock Exchange has been closed, effectivley stalling all world financial markets. Source: AP

10.55pm: The crew of the HMS Bounty, a tall ship that has been used in several films including the mutiny movie starring Mel Gibson, was forced to abandon the distressed vessel off North Carolina's Outer Banks as Hurricane Sandy bore down on it, the Coast Guard said.

All 17 people aboard got into two lifeboats, wearing survival suits and life jackets, as the ship lost power and began taking on water.

The Coast Guard is trying to determine whether to use cutters or helicopters to rescue the crew.

The ship was about 135km southeast of Hatteras when the ship's owner called saying she'd lost contact with the crew.

The 180-foot, three-masted ship also appeared in Pirates of the Caribbean II.

The "HMS Bounty" during a visit to Chicago. Picture: AFP /JEFF HAYNES Source: AFP

9.45pm: CBS reports that Sandy's wind speeds have risen as it approaches New York .

With winds now topping 130km/h, the Category 1 hurricane is moving north at more than 20km/h after earlier tracking to the northeast. Quoting America's National Hurricane Centre, CBS says hurricane-force winds extend up to 250km from the storm's centre. Gale force winds were reported over coastal North Carolina, southeastern Virginia, the Delmarva Peninsula and coastal New Jersey.

Sandbags have been brought in to protect Lower Manhattan businesses, including the stock exchange. Picture: AP Source: AP

Web cams - Times Square , Wall St, Brooklyn Bridge

8.41pm: The state branches of America's National Weather Service have issued a series of extremely strongly worded warnings.

"If you are reluctant to evacuate, think about your loved ones, think about the emergency responders who will be unable to reach you when you make the panicked phone call to be rescued."

Pergi Mengembala