By: HISTORY.com Editors
Superstorm Sandy makes landfall in New Jersey
On the evening of October 29, 2012, Superstorm Sandy barrels into the New Jersey coastline northeast of Atlantic City. Among the costliest natural disasters in American history, the massive storm struck major population centers along the Atlantic seaboard, leaving millions without power and unleashing a catastrophic storm surge that inundated New York City and coastal New Jersey communities.
Sandy formed in the southwest Caribbean Sea on October 22 and became a late-season hurricane two days later. After passing over Jamaica as a Category 1 storm, Sandy rapidly intensified into a Category 3 hurricane before striking Cuba. As it passed over cooler ocean waters, the storm weakened into a post-tropical cyclone but grew considerably in size, with hurricane-force winds stretching up to 175 miles from its center and tropical-storm-force winds extending some 485 miles outward.
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Sandy’s wrath was felt from Maine to Florida, but the storm hit New Jersey the hardest, leaving 2 million of the state’s residents without power and more than 345,000 homes damaged or destroyed. The monster storm made landfall near Brigantine, New Jersey, with sustained 70-knot winds, torrential rain and a record-breaking storm surge exacerbated by high tides and a full moon that flooded towns along the Jersey Shore. The tidal surge washed away piers and boardwalks, even leaving the Star Jet roller coaster in Seaside Heights submerged in the ocean.
Superstorm Sandy also battered New York City, resulting in 44 deaths and an estimated $19 billion in damages and lost economic activity. The storm surge breached seawalls in lower Manhattan, flooding subway stations, tunnels and low-lying streets and sparking a fire in the Breezy Point neighborhood of Queens that destroyed 130 homes. The extensive destruction forced the New York Stock Exchange to close for two consecutive business days—its longest weather-related closure since the Great Blizzard of 1888.
As Sandy merged with incoming cold air from the west, it even delivered up to roughly 3 feet of heavy snow in portions of Appalachia. (A little over a week later, areas of the Northeast still reeling from Sandy were also substantially blanketed with snowfall during an early-season nor’easter.) Arriving near Halloween, the complex cyclone was dubbed “Frankenstorm” by a forecaster at the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center and left more than $62 billion in damage and at least 147 deaths in its wake.
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Citation Information
- Article Title
- Superstorm Sandy makes landfall in New Jersey
- Author
- HISTORY.com Editors
- Website Name
- History
- Date Accessed
- October 21, 2026
- Publisher
- A&E Television Networks
- Last Updated
- October 21, 2026
- Original Published Date
- October 21, 2026
