STORM ON THE EAST COAST OF USAIl Sandy cyclone has passed, New York underwater 16 deaths so far established, 6.5 million people without luceMetropolitana flooded, a hospital evacuatoDal our correspondent MAXIMUM GAGGINEW YORK – All in one night: the biggest flood of 'last century in New York, 15 deaths along the American East Coast (plus one in Canada), 6.5 million people without electricity, the subway flooded with the MTA, the company that runs it, obliged to postpone the reopening of , originally scheduled for this afternoon. And a hospital – that of New York University – forced to evacuate its 215 patients with more serious because, after the black out on the Lower East Side, the independent generator that would supply electricity to operating rooms and intensive care unit did not work. Until dusk New Yorkers and Americans who live on the East Coast, although warned by mayors, governors, and by the President Obama on the severity of the storm that was about to befall them, they hoped that Sandy was like Irene: Hurricane that a little over a year ago did considerable damage, but causing no real catastrophe. Then, from the time when the vortex has reached the coast – 8 pm, one night in Italy – the metropolis began to sink in the water while the skyscrapers vibrated under the blows of wind gusts: whole areas of Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island flooded by a meter or a meter and a half. The salt water has slipped in subway stations, has flooded many tunnels. Also flooded the runways at Kennedy and La Guardia to, the busiest in the region. The ocean has flooded entire neighborhoods, has risen to the Upper East Side, the most elegant area of ​​the city, where the FDR, the coastal highway, closed for hours, has become a sort of breakwater, swept, and often covered by Waves also covered York Avenue and invaded even the First Avenue in the section north of 94th street. Then I start the explosions and fires: the first is blown a transformer of the power of Fourteenth Street, in Lower Manhattan, which left 500,000 households without power in that area. Then came, in bursts, the news of the burning of houses invaded by water to New York, but also on Long Island and in New Jersey, probably short-circuits that have fueled the flames. After midnight, however, the force of the winds began to fall and the waters have begun to recede as the hurricane, "downgraded" to tropical storm, but still with its winds of 80 miles, has continued its run toward the north, to the Ohio and the Great Lakes, after provoking, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, real snow storms, clashing with the cold arctic currents. Fifteen officially declared dead so far. Victims of accidents such as the one in Queens where a large tree fell on a house, killing a woman. But in the night New Yorkers have been anticipating the crack of dawn to go to see for himself the damage. With the fear of finding not only devastation so far only hinted at, but also loved ones – family and old friends who live on the lower floors of some residential area far – trapped in their homes. Even today, in the meantime, schools, offices and Stock Exchange on Wall Street closed. October 30, 2012 | 9:28