Mandatory Evacuations, Advisories Expand As Hurricane Sandy Bears Down
By Molly Daly
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- As the winds and flooding associated with Hurricane Sandy increase around the Delaware Valley, more mandatory evacuations and advisories have been issued.
A mandatory evacuation order is now in place for parts of Bensalem, Pa., along the Poquessing and Neshaminy creeks, and the Delaware River. Details on locations are available at bensalempolice.org.
Trucks were being banned from Delaware River Port Authority bridges after 2pm this afternoon (see related story).
As Sandy's winds crank up, so do the number of power outages. Peco says outages are scattered throughout the area at this time, but climbing into the low thousands.
If you have an outage, Peco won't know about it till you report it, so call Peco at 1-800-841-4141 if your power goes out (see related story).
Atlantic City Electric was reporting about 3,600 power outages as of noontime today, and PSE&G said it had more than 4,000 power outages in parts of Mercer, Burlington, and Gloucester counties.
The latest outage figure from Delmarva Power was 685 outages.
Chester City's mayor, John Linder, is urging all non-emergency personnel to stay off area roads for the duration of the storm.
The National Weather Service has issued a flood warning for Chester Creek, and residents may need to be relocated to shelters. Chester residents who need help getting to a shelter are asked to call 610-447-7784.
A reminder that Philadelphia International Airport remains open but all flight operations have been canceled (see related story). US Airways has canceled all operations through tomorrow at Philadelphia, Boston, Reagan National, and New York area airports. Also, all US Airways transatlantic flights will be staying in Europe till Wednesday.
