As the entire US East Coast braced up for the hurricane Sandy, hundreds and thousands of Indian Americans prepared themselves for the days ahead, rushing to the grocery store to stock up eatable, water, milk, fruits and other emergency items.
And in many cases a lot of them had to be disappointed or had to pay more, as the grocery stores in some cases had raised up their prices given the huge demand.
"A Gallon of milk went up by 29 cents, bread by 19 cents, water bottles 10 cents... Yet, three of those stores ran out of drinking water bottles and candles, two stores ran out of milk and Bread. I missed getting bread, had to be happy with Bagels & Tortillas," wrote Jay Mandal, a New York-based photo journalist.
Sree Srinivasan, professor of Journalism at the Columbia University, went to his neighborhood grocery store yesterday to stock up his home supplies ahead of the landfall of Hurricane; shopping carts were missing, there was a huge line, all milk were taken.
"I got the very last onion in the place," Srinivasan, tech guru and head of South Asian Journalist Association (SAJA) wrote on his Facebook page last evening; the picture of that lucky onion which he did not forgot to post on this social network site.
He was not the only Indian American to encounter with such a rarest of the rare situation in a grocery store yesterday had millions of Americans on the East Coast braced up for the Hurricane Sandy.
Expected to landfall tonight, with a gusty wind and heavy rainfall, according to weather experts is likely to create havoc in major parts of the United States in its East Coast, from North Carolina to New England as far west as the Great Lakes.
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In anticipation, the US President, Barack Obama, declared emergency in a number of states including New York, New Jersey, Virginia, District of Columbia and Massachusetts.
Thousands of emergency staff have been put in alert; government offices and schools have been closed for today and tomorrow and hundreds and thousands of people from the low laying areas have been asked to evacuate, as the hurricane sandy is expected to bring potentially life-threatening storm surges on the coast ranging from several feet to potentially as high as 11-feet in the coastal areas.
The metro systems of several cities including that of Washington DC, the national capital, Philadelphia and New York, which has the world's largest rapid transit system.
The New York Stock exchange has suspended physical trading today.
Electronic trading would continue, however.
The United Nations headquarters in New York too have been shut down for two days.
Given the seriousness of the hurricane, the US President, Barack Obama, suspended his election campaign mid-way and returned to the White House to personally review the preparedness.
Mitt Romney, his Republican challenger, also had to cancel his election meetings in the storm affected areas.
Both Obama and Romney cancelled events in Virginia.
Romney also cancelled his New Hampshire trip, but would continue with his campaign in the battleground states of Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin, which are away from the storm.
"This is a serious and big storm," Obama said at headquarters of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in Washington DC where he had gone to review the preparedness.
"And my first message is to all the people across the Eastern seaboard, Mid-Atlantic, going north, that you need to take this very seriously and follow the instructions of your state and local officials, because they are going to be providing you with the best advice in terms of how to deal with this storm over the coming days," Obama said.
Later Obama had a conference call with all the State Governors and City Mayors to be affected by the Hurricane.
The Indian Embassy in Washington and the Indian Consulate in New York announced that their offices would be closed today due to storm.
The TriVisa offices, to which the Indian Embassy has outsourced its visa services, has also closed its offices in both Now York and Washington.