Throughout East, People in Awe of Superstorm Sandy

Residents in the East weathered the effects of Hurricane Sandy and marveled at its raw power as it churned north and then merged with two other weather systems to create a fearsome superstorm. Here are their stories.

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Dani Hart searched for the perfect New York City vantage point to see the damage and destruction wrought by Sandy.

She climbed to the roof of her apartment building in the Brooklyn Navy Yards to gaze at the storm Monday night and saw an explosion in lower Manhattan.

Bright sparks lit the night sky. Against the silhouette of darkened buildings, an orange glow grew into a giant blinding flash. Minutes later it lit up again in another bright flash — an explosion at a utility company substation.

Hart, 30, took out her phone and recorded video of the second explosion.

"We see a pop," Hart said. "The whole sky lights up."

After the flashes, more lights went out in area buildings, she said.

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In Narragansett, a Rhode Island beach town that sits at the mouth of Narragansett Bay, people gathered to watch the waves crash against the seawall while police nearby kept traffic off the road.

Athina McAleer ignored a voluntary call to evacuate her oceanfront home and went out watching the surf Monday.

"I was here last time so Im going to stay this time," McAleer said, referring to last years Tropical Storm Irene. "I just hope we dont have an outage."

Not far away, South Kingstown resident Marc Cinquegrana said he normally thinks forecasters and the media overhype storms — but not this time.

The 42-year-old said he remembers body surfing right before Hurricane Bob, one of the most destructive hurricanes in New Englands history, in 1991. He said he wasnt crazy enough to do something like that for Sandy.

"Ive never seen anything like it in my life," Cinquegrana said. "I grew up with hurricanes, and hurricanes were a joke. This is the worst Ive seen."

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Two feet of floodwater lapped at the front steps of Mike Lebans house, about 50 yards from the Lafayette River in Norfolk, Va.

Ducks swam in the middle of the street nearby, and some were in his neighbors yard. The water didnt get into his house, but it tore the duct work underneath.

"Weve lived in this house 20 years and weve lost the duct work four times in 20 years, so thats not so bad," he said. "As I say, 360 days a year I love this neighborhood, I love this house, I love this river, and five days a year its a religious experience.

"Its at high tide, so you become very aware of when the high tides are, and thats when you break out the prayer rug in hope that youve lived a righteous life."

Leban said the older he gets, the less he can handle the stress of a storm.

"The ducks are happy," he said. "Im not."

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Sandy has accelerated the arrival of winter at Sugar Mountain Ski Resort in North Carolina.

Sugar Mountain spokeswoman Kim Jochl said Monday that the ski resort had already received a couple of inches of natural snow and that snow makers had been running since Sunday night.

The resort, in the North Carolina high country and located in the Pisgah National Forest, plans to open Wednesday for Halloween, the earliest opening in 43 years of operation. Jochl said the earliest opening date previously was Nov. 6, 1976.