developing right now on "early today," hurricane sandy is already having a major impact on the atlantic coast as well as air travelers across the east coast. the storm is drastically changing president obama and mitt romney's campaign plans with just eight days before america votes. and the san francisco giants are 2012 world series champions. captions paid for by nbc-universal television good morning to you. i'm veronica de la cruz. hurricane sandy is bearing down on the east coast. 60 million people are bracing for impact across the northeast with waves growing ever more ominous overnight. and the threat of storm surges

anywhere from four to 11 feet high. this is the scene about 100 miles north of boston. hundreds of thousands have been told to evacuate in coastal areas all the way into new england. the mid-atlantic is already dealing with flooding from a storm that has claimed 65 lives in the caribbean and has the potential to paralyze new york and other big cities. this morning, president obama signed three emergency declarations for connecticut, and rhode island, clearing the way for fema. let's get right to bill karins and the weather channel forecast. what's it looking like right now. >> sandy is an amazing anomaly. this storm this time of year should not be this strong this far north. at this point in the math it should not be ready to take a hook back into the northern mid atlantic states and southern new england. that's all going to happen today. we'll deal with, in some cases, devastating storm surge and the wind damage is going to be incredible with still leaves on the trees in many areas from

philadelphia to the d.c. areas. there's the center of the storm. still thunderstorms around the center. it's feasting right now over the warm waters of the gulf stream. it may even intensify a little bit. amazingly the winds went up this morning to 85 miles per hour, now only a little less than 400 miles away from new york city. it will accelerate and move quickly towards the coast. the weather will go downhill in a hurry. look for landfall somewhere near atlantic city to wild booed to cape may, new jersey, as we go about the 8:00 to 10:00 hour on the east coast. that also coincides with the high tide cycle, too. you picture the devastating effects. high wind warnings in effect. this storm is not just pretty intense for this time of year, but it is enormously huge for any time of year. we have high wind warnings from northern maine through the spine of the appalachians where they'll deal with blizzard conditions in west virginia and also way down into virginia, the norfolk area, 60 to 80-mile-per-hour winds over a large population center. millions of people without power at this time tomorrow morning.

as far as the winds go right now, they're just starting to pick up on the jersey shore to 40 miles per hour. even new york city gusting to 40 miles per hour. usually when you get up to about 50 is when you'll start seeing the trees come down. the heavy rain could cause some problems with flooding. i think the worst part of the rain will be loosening of the soil and the trees will come down. the heavy rainfall amounts as much as seven to eight inches and maybe as high as ten through the del marva region. the worst damage late this afternoon and this evening, veronica from sandy. >> unbelievable. snow, wind, rain, flooding, unbelievable. much of southern new york from manhattan to long island will feel the biggest impact. right now we go to tracie strahan of wnbc in rockaway beach this morning. >> reporter: veronica, conditions here continue to deteriorate. it's hard to believe that this is only the beginning of sandy's fury here in the rockaways. we want to show you what's happening right now.

the ocean waves, at first they were kissing the sand barrier that had been built up, now they are crashing over it, coming underneath the boardwalk in what is evacuation zone a here in new york city. 375,000 people here were ordered to mandatory evacuate. here in the rockaways, we can tell you the lights are still on in several apartment buildings, even cars up and down the street. a lot of people after hurricane irene said they decided to stay put. what you see in the distance is a new york city bus that has been converted into a hurricane shelter transport. there's 72 hurricane shelters set up throughout new york city. so far at last check, there were only about 1,100 people staying inside of them. mandatory evacuations were in place for hurricane irene but that storm petered out. this, of course, expected to be much worse. so many people buying generators, water, extra food, deciding to stick it out. the problem with all of that is in the past four hours that

we've been here, conditions have deteriorated quickly. so when people notice that something could really be wrong, they may not have a chance to get out safely. veronica. >> you can hear the wind picking up. tracie strahan of wnbc, thank you. moments ago president obama canceled a campaign appearance in florida in order to get back to the white house sooner to monitor the storm. nbc's tracie potts has the latest for us from washington. tracie, what's going on? >> reporter: veronica, as you can see things are changing literally by the hour. the president is going to be here and not in florida this morning. so far here we just have light rain. as you can see these campaigns are taking no chances. >> reporter: governor romney will join ryan's bus tour in ohio. president obama canceled events

in virginia and colorado. he'll do one last rally in florida today before heading back to washington. on sunday the president met with fema, the federal emergency management agency overseeing the government's plans to help states and cities. >> anything they need, we will be there. we're going to cut through red tape. we're not going to get bogged down with a lot of rules. >> reporter: in florida the president told campaign workers turnout is the key. >> whoever is able to get their voters out, they're the one whose are going to win florida. >> reporter: that could be tough in states where sandy is headed. maryland already canceled early voting today. virginia, a battleground state could see power outages lasting until election day. >> several months ago we had the largest -- third largest power outage in history but we got everything pretty much back on in seven days. we're not expecting that this time. >> reporter: virginia is already planning to extend its hours for absentee voting. those absentee votes could be critical.

it's believed that 40% of this election will be decided befe election day. >> tracie potts in washington, thank you. now let's check back with bill karins who has the latest on this storm. bill, when is this supposed to make landfall? >> probably about 8:00 to 10:00 on the east coast, about 5:00 on the west coast. that's when dramatic picture of the high tide -- lit be dark. that's when the winds will be howling and everything else. the immense size of the storm, i don't want to focus just on the jersey and philadelphia. the size of the storm is incredible. this is when it was starting its life cycle down in jamaica when it killed all those poor people in haiti with the flash flooding. they're so prone to that. the immense side continued to grow. the cloud shield over the weekend was all the way up into new england while the storm was still over florida. i guess we'll find out in about 24 hours how much damage it does. let me give you a quick briefing on your forecast for the west. we've had rain on and off throughout the last 24 hours coming from the northwest,

especially washington state. it looks like that system is on its way out. idaho and the northern rockies are dealing with most of the wet weather. showery-type weather from portland to seattle to olympia. looks like the cascades and the lick picks will get the most as far as the wet weather is concerned. no problems in california, nice ific maritime air mass which means it's a warmer air. if that air comes from the north this time of year it gets much colder. we'll take another look at your forecast for today and tomorrow coming up later. how hurricane sandy will impact your travel plans, plus wall street may take a walloping of another kind from the hurricane that will keep traders home today. you're watching "early today."

there are already huge headaches for travelers across the country as hurricane sandy makes its approach. nbc's tom costello is at reagan airport this morning for us. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. this place is abandoned. behind me normally you'd see a lot of planes on the ramp. this morning there isn't a plane to be seen anywhere because they pulled them all out of here. they don't want to take any risks at all with planes getting hit by this storm. let me show you a website we watch very closely, i'll show you what happened yesterday at about 5:00 p.m., this website shows real live airline traffic over the skies at any one time. you can see at 5:00 yesterday we had tremendous traffic over the skies of the eastern seaboard. now take a look at the live view of flight radar 24.com. you can see it has emptied out dramatically over the last few hours. whatever few planes are still on the east coast, they're also going to get out of harm's way as fast as they can because of the danger that sandy poses, not

just, of course torques the passengers, but physically to those airplanes. we have right now according to our stats about 7,500 flights canceled, yesterday, today and tomorrow. the airlines are waving the change fees. if you have to rebook, you should not have to pay a penalty. amtrak also canceling service up and down the east coast. we're talking about every major airport on the east coast, washington dulles, washington reagan, baltimore, philadelphia, new york city laguardia, newark as well as hartford. that's just the immediate area of the impact zone as this storm moves further inland, likely to see some of those airports shutting down operations as well or the airlines cutting back their flights. veronica, back to you. >> nbc's tom costello, thank you. sandy is big enough storm to make even wall street shutter. both the new york stock exchange and nas das dak have suspended

all trading today, the first time all trading has stopped since the days following the september 11th attacks. depending on how much damage sandy inflicts, markets could be closed again tomorrow. late last night exchange operators made the call to suspect all u.s. stock trading after complaints were reportedly made to the securities and exchange commission about keeping markets open, even for electronic trading. banks and evacuation zones including goldman sachs, citigroup and american express closed their offices and advised employees to work from home. a number of insurers are already scrambling rapid response teams as estimates of sandy's possible damage swirl around $5 billion. home depot, lowe's and walmart were flooded with customers prepping for the storm. sandy has forced several stocks to postpone third quarter earnings. jpmorgan chase is waving a

number of overdraft and late fees for new jersey, new york and connecticut consumers and businesses impacted by sandy. still ahead, the latest details on hurricane sandy. senator marco rubio's daughter airlifted to a hospital after a golf cart accident. we have your sports next. your forecast also coming up.

very good morning to you.

welcome back to "early today." here are other stories making news this morning syrian military jets bombed opposition areas in damascus and other parts of the country violating a truce. the strikes killed at least 14 people including women and children. in massachusetts, officials close another pharmacy as part of the outbreak of fungal disease that killed 25 people and made 344 sick. a sur surprise inspection turned up unsanitary conditions run by a company called infusion resource. in florida, the 12-year-old daughter of senator marco rubio is hospitalized in fair condition with a head injury following a golf cart accident over the weekend. she is undergoing tests, but is expected to recover. the unmanned dragon space capsule undocked from the international space station and returned safely to earth carrying medical samples from crew members. this was the first official mission for the private space-x

company the movie "argo" was at the top of the weekend box office. the ben affleck thriller brought in $12.4 million, and the new james bond movie "skyfall" got off to a huge start, making $77.7 million in 25 countries. it opens in the united states on friday. in sports now, san francisco swept detroit in four straight games to win their second world series in three years. with the score tied in the tenth ingmar co-scutaro singled to center and the giants went ahead of the tigers 4-3. in the bottom of the tenth, san francisco sealed the sweep. >> again, the 2-2 pitch. got him looking! and the giants have won it all! now to the nfl, peyton manning led the broncos to a

34-14 win over drew brees and the new orleans saints. atlanta remained the nfl's only unbeaten team with a 30-17 win over philadelphia. just ahead, bill karins will have the very latest as the east coast braces for hurricane sandy. please stay with us.

welcome back on this monday. of course, the big weather story all across the country is what's going to happen with hurricane

sandy as it makes landfall in new jersey later this evening. the only other weather system on the map is the one that went through the northwest yesterday, into billings later today. showery weather behind it. temperatures not bad, in the 60s. southwest still feeling very warm. one of the warmest spots in the country is from vegas to phoenix. tuesday's forecast a lot like today, nothing changes here with hit-and-miss showers in the northwest and a lot of sunshine continues with the west. all eyes will be on how much damage is done in the northeast, how many millions of people are without power. it could end up being one of the biggest power outages our country has ever seen. >> biggest storm in history, right? >> it's large. just to bring you up to date, here is what we know right now. president obama has declared states of emergency in several mid atlantic and northeastern states including maryland, new jersey, new york and connecticut. fema, the federal emergency management agency established emergency operations centers in

those places to coordinate preparations and disaster relief. hurricane sandy knocked out electricity to more than 5,000 customers in new jersey so far. officials warn that number will grow into the hundreds of thousands. sandy is being blamed for 65 deaths in the caribbean, 51 in haiti where residents endured three days of constant rain. just this morning, a 17-man crew was forced to abandon the hms bounty after getting caught in sandy's high seas off the coast of carolina. the coast guard says the members safely boarded two life rafts. this storm is shaping up to be a travel nightmare. nearly 7,500 flights canceled in the northeast while amtrak suspended service in the northeast corridor. the show must go on for comedians jimmy fallon, jimmy kimmel. they're both saying they'll go ahead with tapings of their respective shows to night despite the hurricane. kimmel usually tapes in los

angeles but he's at the brooklyn academy of music this week. he says they will use backup generators just in case of a power outage. you were saying that's really going to be the big story for so many folks here, right? >> especially a lot of metropolitan areas. a lot of people in the suburbs are used to it with the trees and power lines above ground. a lot of the cities have power lines below. hopefully cities like new york city and philadelphia won't have too many power outages. >> the danger is, this time last year we had hurricane irene and it went right around new york. i think a lot of people are thinking that might happen. >> it's a big storm. there's going to be a lot of issues. all right. i'm veronica de la cruz, this is "early today," just the first stop of the day today on your nbc station.

the statue of liberty turned 126 on sunday, but hurricane sandy has forced officials to delay unveiling her new look. a small ribbon-cutting ceremony marked the celebration of lady liberty's reopening. the landmark had a $30 million

touchup. the elevator allows wheelchair-bound visitors inside for the first time ever. isn't that great? >> i've never been to the statue of liberty. >> you haven't? >> you're not a real new yorker. >> i can see it from my house but i've never been to it. >> they'll reopen the public tours on wednesday because of the storm. while most of the atlantic coast braces for this powerful hurricane, floridians were partying it up in the streets of key west. the trajectory of hurricane sandy allowed the sunshine state revelers to keep the party going. the annual ten-day fantasy fest came to a close on sunday, but not before turning the city into a mad house. it featured outrageous costume parties and zombie-themed parades. time for an early look at the stories that we'll following on nbc. president obama canceled a morning rally in florida to head back early to washington the oversee the government's emergency response.

as of right now vice president joe biden is scheduled to visit new hampshire. governor romney will campaign in ohio, iowa and kiss con sin while his running mate travels to florida. hab pi birthday to gabrielle union. all day long you can stay on top of those stories and others as they break on msnbc. tonight be sure to watch brian williams with "nbc nightly news." finally, here is a look at what's coming up later this morning on the "today" show. "morning joe host" joe scarborough and mika brzezinski are live with the candidates. a look at how hurricane sandy is disrupting air travel across the country. keep it here on this channel for continuing news, weather and sports, i'm veronica de la cruz. thank you for watching "early today," just the first stop of the day today on your nbc station. have a terrific monday.