The monstrous Hurricane Sandy has crashed into America's east coast, hitting it with 90mph winds and torrential rain.
It became a category two storm as Monday progressed and threatens to turn life for millions into chaos.
New York City went into lockdown with thousands of residents ordered to leave built-up areas and head for higher ground.
Kamran Moazami, Head of Buildings Structures at engineering consultancy WSP and the structural engineer on the Freedom Tower in New York, said: “New York is a city of skyscrapers but tall buildings are designed to withstand high wind loads – we design structures for a 50 year wind event, up to 98 miles per hour and on top of that structures are designed for a factor of safety.
"The parts of the city that will suffer the most are the smaller structures and the infrastructure which makes up the nervous centre of the city.
"As in any disaster it is the lack of water, power and transport and flooding that can have the most devastating impact and effect on the speed of recovery.”
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