Magnitude-7.7 quake strikes off western Canada

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the west coast of Canada and a tsunami warning was issued, authorities said, but there were no immediate reports of major damage.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit the Queen Charlotte Islands just after 8 p.m. local time Saturday at a depth of about 3 miles (5 kilometes) and was centered 96 miles (155 kilometers) south of Masset, British Columbia.

The National Weather Service issued a tsunami warning for coastal areas of British Columbia and southern Alaska. The first wave of the small tsunami, about 4 inches (101.6 millimeters), hit the southeast Alaska coastal community of Craig.

A 1.5-foot (.46-meter) wave was reported off Langara Island on the northeast tip of Queen Charlotte, according to the Emergency Info British Columbia.

The USGS said the 7.7 magnitude quake shook the area and was followed by a 5.8 magnitude aftershock several minutes later.

The U.S. Coast Guard in Alaska said it was trying to warn everyone with a boat on the water to prepare for a potential tsunami.

Lt. Bernard Auth of the Juneau Command Center said the Coast Guard was working with local authorities to alert people in coastal towns to take precautions.

The quake struck 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Sandspit, British Columbia, on the Haida Gwaii archipelago, formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands. People in coastal areas were advised to move to higher ground.

Urs Thomas, operator of the Golden Spruce hotel in Port Clements said there was no warning before everything began moving inside and outside the hotel. He said it last about three minutes.

"It was a pretty good shock," Thomas, 59, said. "I looked at my boat outside. It was rocking. Everything was moving. My truck was moving."

After the initial jolt, Thomas began to check the hotel.

"The fixtures and everything were still swinging," he said. "I had some picture frames coming down."

Natural Resources Canada said in a statement that a major earthquake was felt across much of north and central British Columbia but that there were no immediate reports of damage. PrayForCanada became a worldwide trending topic on Twitter.

"I was sitting at my desk on my computer and everything just started to move. It was maybe 20 seconds," said Joan Girbav, manager of Pacific Inn in Prince Rupert, British Columbia. "It's very scary. I've lived here all my life and I've never felt that."

The quake was felt on the mainlaind in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, which is across the Hecate Strait from the islands.

"Everyone felt it here," said city recreation director Rudy Kelly, who was setting up an evacuation center for people from the city's low-lying areas. He said the work was in anticipation of a tsunami wave.

Prince Rupert resident Grainne Barthe said fire trucks had blocked access to the waterfront when she came out of a restaurant.

"Everything was moving. It was crazy," she said. "I've felt earthquakes before but this was the biggest. It was nerve wracking. I thought we should be going under a table."

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Megastorm could wreak havoc across 800 miles of US

SHIP BOTTOM, N.J. (AP) — Forget distinctions like tropical storm or hurricane. Don't get fixated on a particular track. Wherever it hits, the behemoth storm plodding up the East Coast will afflict a third of the country with sheets of rain, high winds and heavy snow, say officials who warned millions in coastal areas to get out of the way.

"We're looking at impact of greater than 50 to 60 million people," said Louis Uccellini, head of environmental prediction for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

As Hurricane Sandy trekked north from the Caribbean — where it left nearly five dozen dead — to meet two other powerful winter storms, experts said it didn't matter how strong the storm was when it hit land: The rare hybrid storm that follows will cause havoc over 800 miles from the East Coast to the Great Lakes.

Governors from North Carolina, where steady rains were whipped by gusting winds Saturday night, to Connecticut declared states of emergency. Delaware ordered mandatory evacuations for coastal communities by 8 p.m. Sunday.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was criticized for not interrupting a vacation in Florida while a snowstorm pummeled the state in 2010, broke off campaigning for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in North Carolina on Friday to return home.

"I can be as cynical as anyone," said Christie, who declared a state of emergency Saturday. "But when the storm comes, if it's as bad as they're predicting, you're going to wish you weren't as cynical as you otherwise might have been."

Eighty-five-year-old former sailor Ray Leonard agreed. And he knows to heed warnings.

Leonard and two crewmates in his 32-foot sailboat, Satori, rode out 1991's infamous "perfect storm," made famous by the Sebastian Junger best-selling book of the same name, before being plucked from the Atlantic off Martha's Vineyard, Mass., by a Coast Guard helicopter.

"Don't be rash," Leonard said Saturday from his home in Fort Myers, Fla. "Because if this does hit, you're going to lose all those little things you've spent the last 20 years feeling good about."

Sandy weakened briefly to a tropical storm Saturday but was soon back up to Category 1 strength, packing 75 mph winds. It was about 260 miles (420 kilometers) south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., and moving northeast at 13 mph as of 5 a.m. Sunday, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The storm was expected to continue moving parallel to the Southeast coast most of the day and approach the coast of the mid-Atlantic states by Monday night, before reaching southern New England later in the week.

It was so big, however, and the convergence of the three storms so rare, that "we just can't pinpoint who is going to get the worst of it," said Rick Knabb, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Officials are particularly worried about the possibility of subway flooding in New York City, said Uccellini, of NOAA.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to prepare to shut the city's subways, buses and suburban trains. The city closed the subways before Hurricane Irene last year, and a Columbia University study predicted that an Irene surge just 1 foot higher would have paralyzed lower Manhattan.

Up and down the Eastern Seaboard and far inland, officials urged residents and businesses to prepare in ways big and small.

On Saturday evening, Amtrak began canceling train service to parts of the East Coast, including between Washington, D.C., and New York. Airlines started moving planes out of airports to avoid damage and adding Sunday flights out of New York and Washington in preparation for flight cancellations on Monday.

The Virginia National Guard was authorized to call up to 500 troops to active duty for debris removal and road-clearing, while homeowners stacked sandbags at their front doors in coastal towns.

"You never want to be too naive, but ultimately, it's not in our hands anyway," said Andrew Ferencsik, 31, as he purchased plywood and 2-by-4 lumber from a Home Depot in Lewes, Del.

Utility officials warned rains could saturate the ground, causing trees to topple into power lines, and told residents to prepare for several days at home without power.

President Barack Obama was monitoring the storm and working with state and locals governments to make sure they get the resources needed to prepare, administration officials said.

In North Carolina's Outer Banks, a group of about 20 people was forced to wait out the storm on Portsmouth Island, a former fishing village that is now uninhabited and accessible only by private ferry.

"We tried to get off the island and the ferry service shut down on us," said Bill Rowley, 49, of Rocky Mount, N.C.

Rowley said he could see 15-foot seas breaking over the island's dunes, enough to bring water to the island's interior.

"We'll be inundated and it'll probably be worse tomorrow," he said.

In New Jersey, hundreds of coastal residents started moving inland. Christie's emergency declaration will force the shutdown of Atlantic City's 12 casinos for only the fourth time in the 34-year history of legalized gambling here. City officials said they would begin evacuating the gambling hub's 30,000 residents at noon Sunday, busing them to mainland shelters and schools.

The storm also forced the presidential campaign to juggle schedules. Romney scrapped plans to campaign Sunday in Virginia and switched his schedule for the day to Ohio. First lady Michelle Obama canceled an appearance in New Hampshire for Tuesday, and Obama moved a planned Monday departure for Florida to Sunday night to beat the storm. He also canceled appearances in Northern Virginia on Monday and Colorado on Tuesday.

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'Frankenstorm': Worse than sum of its parts

Map shows predicted rain across the northeast" title="Map shows predicted rain across the northeast

A satellite image of Sandy is shown at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012. Early Saturday, the storm was about 335 miles southeast of Charleston, S.C. Tropical storm warnings were issued for parts of Florida's East Coast, along with parts of coastal North and South Carolina and the Bahamas. Tropical storm watches were issued for coastal Georgia and parts of South Carolina, along with parts of Florida and Bermuda. Sandy is projected to hit the Atlantic Coast early Tuesday. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The storm that is threatening 60 million Americans in the eastern third of the nation in just a couple of days with high winds, drenching rains, extreme tides, flooding and probably snow is much more than just an ordinary weather system. It's a freakish and unprecedented monster.

How did it get that way?

Start with Sandy, an ordinary late summer hurricane from the tropics, moving north up the East Coast. Bring in a high pressure ridge of air centered around Greenland that blocks the hurricane's normal out-to-sea path and steers it west toward land.

Add a wintry cold front moving in from the west that helps pull Sandy inland and mix in a blast of Arctic air from the north for one big collision. Add a full moon and its usual effect, driving high tides. Factor in immense waves commonly thrashed up by a huge hurricane plus massive gale-force winds.

Do all that and you get a stitched-together weather monster expected to unleash its power over 800 miles, with predictions in some areas of 12 inches of rain, 2 feet of snow and sustained 40- to 50 mph winds.

"The total is greater than the sum of the individual parts" said Louis Uccellini, the environmental prediction chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologists. "That is exactly what's going on here."

This storm is so dangerous and so unusual because it is coming at the tail end of hurricane season and beginning of winter storm season, "so it's kind of taking something from both — part hurricane, part nor'easter, all trouble," Jeff Masters, director of the private service Weather Underground, said Saturday.

With Sandy expected to lose tropical characteristics, NOAA is putting up high wind watches and warnings that aren't hurricane or tropical for coastal areas north of North Carolina, causing some television meteorologists to complain that it is all too confusing. Nor is it merely a coastal issue anyway. Craig Fugate of the Federal Emergency Management Agencytold reporters Saturday: "This is not a coastal threat alone. This is a very large area. This is going to be well inland."

Uccellini, who estimated that 60 million people will feel the storm's wrath somehow, said: "This storm as it grows and moves back to the coast on Monday and Tuesday, the circulation of this storm will extend all the way from the Midwest, the Ohio Valley, toward the Carolinas up into New England and southern Canada. It's really going to be an expansive storm system."

It's a topsy-turvy storm, too. The far northern areas of the East, around Maine, should get much warmer weather as the storm hits, practically shirt-sleeve weather for early November, Masters and Uccellini said. Around the Mason-Dixon line, look for much cooler temperatures. West Virginia and even as far south as North Carolina could see snow. Lots of it.

It is what NOAA forecaster Jim Cisco meant Thursday when he called it "Frankenstorm" in a forecast, an allusion to Mary Shelley's gothic creature of synthesized elements.

Cisco and others have called this storm unprecedented. Uccellini, who has written histories about winter storms, said the closest analogs are the 1991 Perfect Storm that struck northern New England and a November 1950 storm. But this is likely to be stronger and bigger than the Perfect Storm; it will strike farther south, and affect far more people.

In fact, the location among those with the highest odds for gale-force winds in the country's most populous place: New York City. New York has nearly a 2-in-3 chance of gale force winds by Tuesday afternoon.

One of the major components in the ferocity of the storm is that it is swinging inland — anywhere from Delaware to New York, but most likely southern New Jersey — almost a due west turn, which is unusual, Uccellini said. So the worst of the storm surge could be north, not south, of landfall. And that gets right to New York City and its vulnerable subways, which are under increasing risk of flooding, he said.

"There is a potential for a huge mess in New York if this storm surge forecast is right," Masters said.

Add to that the hundreds of miles of waves and the overall intensity of this storm, Uccellini said in an interview, and "we are in the middle of a very serious situation."

Forecasters are far more worried about inland flooding from storm surge than they are about winds.

There are several measures for hurricanes. And one NOAA research tool that measures the intensity of hurricane overall kinetic energy forecasts a 5.2 for Sandy's waves and storm surge damage potential. That's on a scale of 0 to 6, putting it up with historic storms, such as Katrina. It rates a much smaller number for wind.

Because of the mix with the winter storm, the wind won't be as intense as it is near the center of a hurricane. But it will reach for hundreds of miles, spreading the energy further, albeit weaker, meteorologists said.

Uccellini and Masters said they expect the central pressure of the storm to drop to a near record low for the Mid-Atlantic or Northeast for any time of year. That is a big indication of energy and helps power the wind. This puts it on par with the 1938 storm that hit Long Island and New England, killing 800 people, or the equivalent of a category 4 hurricane.

Deadly Israeli strike, fire from Gaza mar truce

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A deadly Israeli airstrike into the Gaza Strip and rocket and mortar fire from the Palestinian territory on Sunday marred a fragile truce that took hold late last week.

Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said one early morning strike killed one Palestinian man and wounded another. Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said five rockets and mortars struck southern Israel by early morning, and that school in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba was canceled.

The identity of the dead Palestinian wasn't immediately known. The Israeli military said it targeted a militant squad that had fired a rocket at Israel.

It said it later launched another air attack that also targeted a rocket launching site. No casualties were reported in the second airstrike.

The hostilities disrupted an informal truce that went into effect Wednesday after two days of rocket and mortar barrages and airstrikes.

Five Palestinians were killed in that outbreak of violence and two foreign laborers in Israel were critically wounded.

Hurricane's death toll rises to 65 in Caribbean

Carmene Chales, left, walks with Anes Michaelange and one-year-old Alexandra Alexandre through an area where Hurricane Sandy triggered flooding in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012. As Hurricane Sandy swirls off toward the U.S. East Coast, the Caribbean is mourning the storm-related deaths of at least 43 people and cleaning up wrecked homes, felled power lines and fallen tree branches. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

The interior of a home is flooded after the passing of Hurricane Sandy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012. As Hurricane Sandy swirls off toward the U.S. East Coast, the Caribbean is mourning the storm-related deaths of at least 43 people and cleaning up wrecked homes, felled power lines and fallen tree branches. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — As Americans braced Sunday for Hurricane Sandy, Haiti was still suffering.

Officials raised the storm-related death toll across the Caribbean to 65, with 51 of those coming in Haiti, which was pelted by three days of constant rains that ended only on Friday.

As the rains stopped and rivers began to recede, authorities were getting a fuller idea of how much damage Sandy brought on Haiti. Bridges collapsed. Banana crops were ruined. Homes were underwater. Officials said the death toll might still rise.

"This is a disaster of major proportions," Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe told The Associated Press. "The whole south is under water."

The country's ramshackle housing and denuded hillsides are especially vulnerable to flooding. The bulk of the deaths were in the southern part of the country and the area around Port-au-Prince, the capital, which holds most of the 370,000 Haitians who are still living in flimsy shelters as a result of the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Santos Alexis, mayor of the southern city of Leogane, said Sunday that the rivers were receding and that people were beginning to dry their belongings in the sun.

"Things are back to being a little quiet," Alexis said by telephone. "We have seen the end."

Sandy also killed 11 in Cuba, where officials said it destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of houses. Deaths were also reported in Jamaica, the Bahamas and Puerto Rico. Authorities in the Dominican Republic said the storm destroyed several bridges and isolated at least 130 communities while damaging an estimated 3,500 homes.