By Keith Laing
President Obama warned Monday that transportation systems along the East Coast are going to be “tied up for a long time” during and after Hurricane Sandy.
Public transportation systems in cities like New York and Washington, D.C., were shut down Monday in anticipation of the hurricane, which is predicted to make landfall in New Jersey between Monday night and Tuesday morning.
Airlines have canceled flights to Northeastern airports, and Amtrak, along with commuter railways and intercity buses, have shut down in preparation for the storm.
Obama warned Monday that it could take days after hurricane passes for those systems to get back to running at full speed.
“Transportation is going to be tied up for a long time,” Obama said in a White House press briefing. “And probably the most significant impact for a lot of people, in addition to flooding, is going to be getting power back on.
“So the public should anticipate that there’s going to be a lot of power outages and it may take time for that power to get back on,” Obama continued. “The same is true with transportation; there are going to be a lot of backlogs. And even after the storm has cleared, it’s going to take a considerable amount of time for airlines, subways, trains and so forth, potentially, to get back, you know, on schedule, depending on the amount of damage that has occurred.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/public-transit/264651-obama-transportation-is-going-to-be-tied-up-for-a-long-time-by-hurricane-sandy