hurricane

MTA's Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel (officially Hugh Carey Tunnel) was totally filled with sea water by the storm surge that flooded low lying parts of Manhattan and is likely to be out of service for months. The Queens Midtown Tunnel also took serious quantities of water and is closed.

The Cross Bay Bridge to the heavily hit Rockaways barrier island was closed but the other MTAB&T Marine/Hodges bridge is open.

5pm: Major Maryland toll bridges have been closed as Hurricane Sandy has executed a sharp left turn in its track which is now put virtually west over the MD/DE line leading into southern PA. Here in Frederick MD just 15 miles south of the PA line the wind has picked up strongly. We've had our first power outage - for a few seconds only - after the pop of an arc-over, obviously not far away.

Oct 29 1am: Transit systems all over the mid-Atlantic area have been completely shut down well ahead of Hurricane Sandy, but highways are more resilient and too important to shut down except in dire circumstances.  As of writing the New York/northern NJ area looks most threatened by the big, slow storm.

Tollers on the east coast went from supporting evacuations before Hurricane/Storm Irene through restrictions on account of winds and flooding to closures in some cases. The Chesapeake Expressway, a city tollroad in southeast Virginia played a key role in allowing the North Carolina Outer Banks to be evacuated ahead of the Hurricane making landfall.

Maryland (Toll) Transportation Authority (MdTA) has no plans as of Thursday lunchtime to close any of their eight Chesapeake Bay toll crossings with Hurricane Irene coming north up the coast. But conditions will be monitored and if they become unsafe the following restrictions are planned for the six bridges based on sustained wind speeds:

Harris County Toll Road Authority in Houston told its employees not to report to work at the authority offices Friday or Saturday because the tollroads were shutting down. Tolls have not been collected since before Hurricane Ike, which hit the Houston area late Friday night and through Saturday morning. Toll collection ceased at 7pm (19:00) Sept 10, Wednesday evening to assist with evacuations ordered for the southeast part of the metro area.