U.S. East Coast braces for Hurricane Sandy

Electric trading will remain open but the Wall Street trading site will be closed.

"Sandy will be more like a large nor'easter on steroids"

Good grief! Haven't they figured out how to stop these storms yet?

Hope everyone stays safe.

Good grief! Haven't they figured out how to stop these storms yet?

Serrano - I'm afraid to ask, but who are "they", and how would you propose to stop weather?

Hoser - "They" are our brilliant scientists, and heck, if we can stop global warming by reducing CO2 emissions, certainly we can stop storms!

Serrano - so this particular storm is the direct result of global warming? Have we never in history had storms like this before?

How about an Executive Order?

Good luck and God bless to all my friends and family on the East Coast.

Update

New York Stock market will be completely closed tomorrow. The first in history.

More than 6500 flights have been cancelled going to the East Coast and more will be cancelled tomorrow.

This is a super storm in decades.

Maybe Sandy will wake conservatives up to the reality and dangers of climate change.

Oh wait - Al Gore and all his planes and big houses are responsible for the warming planet and crazy weather.

Sorry....

The Day After Tomorrow - a 2012 documentary, Were the Aztecs correct?

gw, according to CNN it's the first time since 1985 that NYSE will be completely closed.

This may likely far outdo Katrina in terms of physical and financial damage considering the breadth of damage.

Mitt Romney was asked whether FEMA should be closed so that states can individually take over responsibility for disaster response.

"Absolutely," he said. "Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that's even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?"

"Including disaster relief, though?" debate moderator John King asked Romney.

"We cannot -- we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids," Romney replied. "It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we'll all be dead and gone before it's paid off. It makes no sense at all."

Might not be fair to bring this up - he was probably just kidding, or perhaps his position has evolved. I am sure he will not hate FEMA after tomorrow, at any rate. That said, he might start to hate FEMA again in the future. Who knows with this guy?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/28/mitt-romney-fema_n_2036198.html

What a stupid rationale to take things from the federal level and push them down to the state level. It's not like the states are swimming in money. North Dakota is the only one I know of that is solidly in the black.

It makes no sense to give a service to the state that the state can't afford. That's setting them up for failure.

Considering how profoundly FEMA stuffed up in the wake of Katrina...

Latest tracking is right over my head. It's already very windy & it's not even expected to hit the coast for several hours. Doesn't look good for people along the coast in NJ & NY.

I am in Jamaica now, and the eye made landfall last Wednesday a couple days after it formed in the Central Caribbean. It left lots of damage and I can only imagine what it will be like to experience that for several days, as some persons in the US will feel for the next few days.

It must be better to exaggerate the possible dangers and then hope that it isn't as bad. For this reason everyone overstates the case, as in, it's better to be safe than sorry.

They do this in Japan a lot. The problem is that people get jaded and do not believe the hype any more the next time around.

For this reason alone, the storm had better be as bad as they are predicting. Let's keep the predictions and the reality close.

Those hunkering down, stay safe. Those going to watch the storm and experience a hurricane first hand, stay safe too!

Mitt Romney was asked whether FEMA should be closed so that states can individually take over responsibility for disaster response.

"Absolutely," he said. "Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that's even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?"

Laguna, thanks for the post reminding me again how GOP (Bush) handled the Katrina disaster. Brown- FEMA resigned due to disagreement on decision making. GOP and Romney will eliminate FEMA in brink of eyes if elected.

What a stupid rationale to take things from the federal level and push them down to the state level.

Hayden, I, myself went through another disaster this summer. It works the other way around. The federal financial and physical help kicks in when the state exhaustsall resources.

It must be better to exaggerate the possible dangers

Actually, tonight they are expecting 11-16 ft water surge. It is not exaggeration.

Maybe this storm will change the minds of a few climate change skeptics on the east coast--if they survive.

When people insist on building their homes closer and closer to the coast line--whether its New Orleans or anywhere along the eastern seaboard--natural disasters are bound to happen, so stop blaming Bush or Romney. Instead of looking for someone to blame, just be prepared; most disaster-preparedness literature tells you to be prepared to be on your own for at least 48 to 72 hours. When power is out, roads and bridges are washed away there is virtually nothing FEMA or local disaster teams can do immediately. My God people give the Bush/Romney bashing a rest.

Globalwatcher,

Hayden, I, myself went through another disaster this summer. It works the other way around. The federal financial and physical help kicks in when the state exhausts all resources.

Here's the rub. Who pays for the states that can't pay their own way? The other states do. I wouldn't have so much of a problem with it if it weren't for the fact that the majority of "pick yourself up by your own bootstraps" personal responsibility types don't want to pay for a lot of the services they still like to receive, so it comes in the form of welfare, from the more profitable states (mostly northern and mostly blue). Local and state taxes kill my sister in Minnesota and all of that money is going out of state to pay for the crap of people who think they are personally responsible when they are, in fact, "welfare queens." State tax just went up again last year here in Maryland and the money is leaving the state.

Shall we take a trip down memory lane? How many Senators and Congressmen railed against the "stimulus porkulus" that the grand socialist Obama wanted to bring to America. Compare that to the list that were smiling like the cat that ate the canary as they took the Obama stimulus money.

Funny that, a lot of politicians on that list coincide. How can that be? How can someone campaign and vote against something as being bad and then ask for it for your state?

You just can't make stuff like this up. As God as my witness, tell me where to sign and I'll be the first person to sign the petition to make the Confederacy its own country. It would be like giving the rest of the U.S. an enema.

Without absolutely all kidding aside, I wish the South would hurry up, rise again, declare their independence, marry their sisters and leave the rest of us tax payers in peace.