Superstorm Sandy's wrath: Deaths, flooding, outages – and no end in sight

Editor's Note: A true picture of Sandy's wrath won't be apparent until daylight Tuesday, but every passing hour is bringing fresh reports of damages from the destructive superstorm. The storm has already claimed 13 lives in the United States and left untold number in flooded homes and without power from South Carolina to Maine. Here is the full story. 

Are you there? Send your stories and photos to CNN iReport but stay safe.
Here are the latest developments:
[Updated 2:19 a.m.] It will take 14 hours to four days to get out the water that has flooded the subway tunnels in New York, Metro Transit Authority spokesman Kevin Ortiz said.
Here's a statement from MTA chairman:

The New York City subway system is 108 years old, but it has never faced a disaster as devastating as what we experienced last night. Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on our entire transportation system, in every borough and county of the region.

[Updated 2:10 a.m.] Jane's Carousel is a restored 1922 carousel in Philadephia - the first carousel to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places. This is how it looked Monday night:
[Update 2:02 a.m.] 6,535,896: That's the number of customers without power across 13 states and Washington D.C.
[Update 1:57 a.m.] The 2 a.m. advisory is out: Superstorm Sandy continues to pack hurricane force winds more than five hours after making landfall along the coast of southern New Jersey, according to the 2 a.m. ET advisory from the National Weather Service. The system is centered about 10 miles southwest of Philadelphia.
[Update 1:38 a.m.] The U.S. death toll from Sandy now stands at 13 after police in Pennsylvania said an 8-year-old boy died Monday after he was struck by a tree limb in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania.
[Update 1:32 a.m.] New power outage numbers: 5.5 million customers in 13 states and Washington D.C., according to a CNN tally.
[Update 1:27 a.m.] Now come the blizzards. The National Weather Service says a blizzard spawned by Sandy will bring 2 to 3 feet of snow to the mountains of West Virginia, with 1 to 2 feet expected to fall in Southwestern Virginia. Another 12 to 18 inches of snow will fall in the mountains near the Tennessee-North Carolina border.
[Update 1:22 a.m.] Reporter Jeff Pegues with CNN affiliate WABC says the howling winds and rising waters of Sandy shorted out power lines and sparked a major fire in the Rockaway Park area of Queens Monday evening, according to firefighters.
[Update 1:15 a.m.] NYU Langone Medical Center says backup power to the facility has failed. The hospital is evacuating all patients now. Earlier, it had said it was evacuating nearly all.
[Update 1:03 a.m.] The rain will continue and "the winds are still going to be howling” overnight, says CNN meteorologist Ivan Cabrera.  “We’re tracking a hurricane and a blizzard all at the same time.” The blizzard in the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia will last 36 hours.
[Update 1:03 a.m.] Trillian Media captured this explosion at a Con Edison power plant Monday evening, that plunged many New Yorkers in the dark. The explosion happens around 18 seconds - and you can see parts of the city slowly go dark.
[Update 12:51 a.m.] More than 99 blood drives in the Northeast have been canceled due to Sandy. This is likely to create a blood shortage in the Northeast as emergency crews work to help those injured. To help with the anticipated shortage, the Red Cross is encouraging people throughout the country to donate blood. People can also donate $10  to disaster relief efforts by texting REDCROSS to 90999, or they can contribute online at www.redcross.org. “We are expecting to been a very long and difficult situation,” said spokeswoman Kristiana Almeida.
[Update 12:51 a.m.]  An ominous tweet from the Connecticut emergency management department:
[Update 12:45 a.m.]  York University's Langone Medical Center isn't the only one medical facility impacted by the storm. New York’s Bellevue Hospital Center has had flooding in its basement and is currently using emergency backup power, but no injuries have been reported.  Ian Michaels of the Office of Emergency Management says the main priority is to help secure additional power, and obtain additional fuel and pumps for the hospital.
[Update 12:45 a.m.] This is a sight you rarely see

Port Authority NY&NJ @PANYNJ

Flood waters rush in to the Hoboken PATH station through an elevator shaft. #Sandy 

 

[Update 12:37 a.m.] At least 5.3 million people are without electricity across 10 states and Washington D.C., according to a CNN tally. Standby for updated figures as info continues to roll in from other affected states.
[Update 12:35 a.m.] There's been a 12th death in the United States: A 62-year-old man was killed in by a falling tree in Oley, Pennsylvania. "The gentleman went outside to let his dog out. And he was on his back porch when a tree fell on the porch,"  said Pennsylvania State Police spokesman David Beohm. 
[Update 12:12 a.m.] The storm surge along with the high tide that resulted in historic water levels in western Long Island Sound has started to recede, the National Weather Service said on Monday night. Water levels will continue to fall below flood stage through the overnight hours, the weather service said.
[Updated at 11:55 p.m.] Lisa Greiner, spokeswoman with New York University's Langone Medical Center, offers some more details about why the facility is evacuating about 200 patients:
"Due to the severity of Hurricane Sandy and the higher than expected storm surge, we are in the process of transferring approximately 200 patients within the medical center to nearby facilities. We are having
intermittent telephone access issues, and for this reason the receiving hospital will notify the families of their arrival. They're on backup power now and have been for the past 2.5 hours approx there's no flooding in the hospital (may be flooding in basement).”
[Update 11:50 p.m.] Sen. Bob Menendez, North Bergen, NJ, was on air a few minutes ago and said the building he lives in had its windows blasted out. "I think it's the worst we have seen here in my lifetime,” he said of the damage in his state.
[Update 11:47 p.m.] Half the city of Hoboken, New Jersey, is flooded, said Mayor Dawn Zimmer. The city of 50,000 has had to evacuate two of its fire stations
[Update 11:45 p.m.] Sandy has claimed its first casualty in Canada. A woman was killed when she was struck by flying debris in Toronto, the city police said on its Twitter feed Monday night.
The city is also experiencing wind gusts , wet roads and heavy rain. About 6,000 customers are without power, police said.
[Updated at 11:42 p.m.] Brooklyn borough President Marty Markowitz tells CNN that New York firefighters were having difficulty getting to a fire at Coney Island Hospital late Monday because of the flooding.
[Update at 11:37 p.m.] A caravan of ambulances is ferrying patients of New York York University's Langone Medical Center after it lost power, CNN affiliate WABC showed.
[Updated at 11:35 p.m.] Sandy continues to pack 75 mph winds as it moved over land late Monday, according to the National Hurricane Center's 11 p.m. advisory. The center of the storm, which is moving northwest at 18 mph, is 10 miles southwest of Philadelphia.
The Miami-based weather agency warns that hurricane-force gusts, in excess of 74 mph, could be felt overnight from Chincoteague, Virginia, to the Cape Cod community of Chatham, Massachusetts.
[Updated at 11:31 p.m.] A buoy located at the entrance to New York Harbor rose to a record height of 32.5 feet on Monday night, according to the National Weather Service. This breaks the previous record of 26 feet, set during Hurricane Irene in August 2011.
[Posted at 11:29 p.m.] More than 670,000 New Yorkers are without power, Con Edison official John Miksad said late Monday.