A little over one week following the destruction left behind by Hurricane Sandy on the East Coast, another coastal storm is threatening the weakened areas of New Jersey and New York. On Monday, a nor’easter began to come together in the Gulf of Mexico and eventually travel up the East Coast. Forecasters are saying that it will pass within 50 to 100 miles of the New Jersey coast sometime Wednesday. Forecasts are calling for 55 mph winds, two inches of rain and coastal flooding. New York and Pennsylvania could see a couple inches of snow as well.
“It’s going to impact many areas that were devastated by Sandy,” said Bruce Terry in an interview with the Associated Press. Terry is the lead forecaster for the National Weather Service. “It will not be good.”
While a couple of towns were thinking about ordering mandatory evacuations for the impending storm, New York City’s mayor Michael Bloomberg said there will not be any evacuations.
“When Sandy was coming in, all the signs said that we were going to have a very dangerous, damaging storm, and I ordered a mandatory evacuation of low-lying areas, something that a lot of people don’t like to hear,” he said. “In this case, we don’t think that it merits that. It is a different kind of storm; the wind is coming from a different direction.”
Laura DiPasquale, a resident of Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, was searching through bags of trash placed at the curb outside her home by volunteers cleaning up debris from Sandy.
“I don’t know where anything is; I can’t even find my checkbook,” she said. “I have no idea what’s in any of these bags. And now another storm is coming and I feel enormous pressure. I don’t know if I can do this again. It is so overwhelming. I found an ornament that says `Baby’s First Christmas.’ People said, `Laura, you don’t need that. Yes, I do need that. I’ll wash it, or I’ll sanitize it, or I’ll boil it if I have to. Money means nothing to me. Sentimental stuff is everything.”
Forecasters expect the storm to begin its trek up the coast on Tuesday when it passes Georgia and South Carolina. As of Wednesday morning it will be near Virginia and Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Terry warns that the storm could slow down when it approaches New Jersey, causing it to dump more water and wind on an already battered area.
Janet Napolitano, the United States Homeland Security Secretary, said, “Everything people did to get people ready for Sandy, we need to do for the nor’easter. We have people who want to stay in their homes. We know that.”