New Yorkers leave the city as hurricane Sandy approaches

With forecasters expecting that the New York area could get the worst of the super storm moving its way towards the country, property owners boarded up their homes and many were not leaving anything to chance and evacuated their families out of the city centre on Sunday.

Forecasters warned that the mega storm could wreak havoc over 800 miles (1,300 kilometres) from the East Coast to the Great Lakes.

New York called off school on Monday for the city's 1.1 (m) million students and announced it would suspend all train, bus and subway service Sunday night because of the risk of flooding, shutting down a system on which more than five million riders a day depend on.

Of those at the greatest risk from the powerful storm are the elderly and disabled.

Long Beach Medical Centre in Long Beach has decided to evacuate all of their patients.

Sharon Player, Director of Public Affairs for Long Beach Medical Centre, said planning the evacuation of more than 200 patients has taken them more than two days to organise.

Sandy, a Category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of 75 mile per hour (120 kilometres per hour) as of Sunday evening, was blamed for 65 deaths in the Caribbean before it began churning up the Eastern Seaboard.

As of 8 p.m (00:00 GMT)., it was centered about 485 miles (780 kilometres) southeast of New York City, moving at 15 mph (24 kph), with hurricane-force winds extending an incredible 175 miles (281.62 kilometres) from its centre.

It was expected to hook left toward the mid-Atlantic coast and come ashore late Monday or early Tuesday, most likely in New Jersey, colliding with a wintry storm moving in from the west and cold air streaming down from the Arctic.

Forecasters said that because of giant waves and high tides made worse by a full moon, the metropolitan area of New York with a population of about 20 (m) million people could get hit with an 11-foot (3.3-meter) wall of water.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned people in low-lying areas of lower Manhattan and Queens to evacuate and many residents were doing exactly that.

"We are heading out to Jersey to my sister's place, same place we went to for Irene, definitely think its going to be a little more intense than the last time but personally if we didn't have kids we probably would be sticking it out here," said Rob Kraft, who was evacuating his two children and his wife.