MANILA, Philippines – As cities shut down on the East Coast of the United States in anticipation of Hurricane Sandy, residents turned to social media to relay their situation to friends and families and to ask for help from those with resources.

New Yorkers living in Manhattan reported losing power at about 8:45 pm (8:45 am Manila time), as winds and rains gained strength upon nightfall as expected.

Most streets were empty throughout the day and businesses closed, a rare sight in New York City.

Infrastructure damage has also been reported. ABC News posted a story on a construction crane that snapped on 57th St. in NYC, which prompted the evacuation of a Manhattan hotel. Residents who lived in higher floors of their buildings have also been asked to move to lower floors to ensure safety.

The report said “the crane swayed in the wind for hours” before finally collapsing at 2:50pm. Mahima Sukhdev, 24, posted a photo of the crane on her Facebook page, taken from inside her apartment.

Sukhdev, who doesn’t have a television in her apartment, was bombarded by a flurry of comments from friends who advised her of the news they received of the crane falling.

Varied hits

While New York appeared to receive the brunt of the storm, residents of Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey also reported power outages.

For some, it was an opportunity to spend quality time with friends and loved ones. Among the creative ideas residents did to buy time included lighting candles and drinking wine, going online, or feasting on food they prepared earlier that day in anticipation of blackouts.

Even parts of Ohio experienced extreme weather, evident from the snapshot taken by Hannah Smith below from Edgwater State Park in Cleveland, Ohio where waves were bigger than anticipated.

Since the photo was taken, Smith shares that the hurricane has only gotten worse — highways are closed and flooded, residents are arrested if they unneccesarily attempt to go out, and skies light up blue and green intermittently because of transformers blowing up.

In Wilmington, Delaware a driving ban was instituted at 5 am and schools are closed Monday and Tuesday, October 31. Sandy seems to have spared Wilmington, except for consistent rain throughout the day.

As of 9 pm, resident Jarrett Burks, 24, said everything was still and there was hardly any rain or wind where he was, adding he even managed to walk to an open Chinese restaurant with friends earlier today to get food.

But with Hurricane Sandy expected to continue through Tuesday, it may be too soon to tell. – Rappler.com