Brunt of Sandy to hit in an hour

By mid-morning Monday, flooding from tides heightened by Hurricane Sandy had already begun in Riverdale's low-lying areas. Waves were breaking on land at the Riverdale Yacht Club and at the Riverdale Metro-North station.

• For a map of flooding, power outages, downed trees and other impacts of the storm, click here. We will continue to update the map throughout the storm.

• For 'The Riverdale Press' list of emergency information and contacts, including a list of evacuation centers and a ConEd outage map, click here. 

The first power outages in the area were reported by Con Edison on Cannon Place at around 3 p.m. Sparks were seen flying from downed power lines.

As of 4 p.m., about 410 households were in the midst of a blackout caused by downed wires on Palisade Avenue, just west of Independence Avenue.
One household has lost electricity near the corner of West 234th Street and Kingsbridge Avenue due to burning wires.

Problems with electricity have been reported on Fieldston Terrace near Post Road and on Valles Avenue near Henry Hudson Parkway, according to ConEd's outage map. A partial outage has left one home without power on Kappock Street near Independence Avenue.

The National Hurricane Center predicts that Sandy is 160 miles from the city and is traveling with sustained winds of 90 mph. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the brunt of the storm could hit as early as 6 p.m.

The evacuation center at the David A. Stein Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy, MS/HS 141, was still empty by late morning, except for a few men who slept on cots set up in the school.

Marc Jones said he lives in a basement apartment on the Grand Concourse and that he checked in at about 11 p.m. Sunday night after he started to see trees waving in the wind. He traveled accross the Bronx, he said, to avoid the "riffraff" he feared he would find closer to home.

"They made it comfortable for me," he said of the provisions at 141.

With Sandy barreling up the east coast, Mayor Michael Bloomberg earlier in the day warned residents the storm may churn out stronger winds after making landfall just south of Atlantic City at 8 p.m.

“That keeps New York City well within the danger zone of the storm,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “This is a massive storm… Please stay inside.”

Mr. Bloomberg said the FDR Drive on Manhattan's east side had already accumulated as much water by noon Monday as the highway had taken on during the entirety of Tropical Storm Irene last August.

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