Hurricane Sandy is roaring toward the Northeast, expected to make landfall early Tuesday near the southern New Jersey coast, prompting officials to order a mass transit shutdown and widespread mandatory evacuation orders ahead of punishing winds, days of rain and the promise of possibly historic flooding.

Mayor Bloomberg said he was closing city schools and ordering evacuations for the city’s most vulnerable zone, which includes Battery Park City, Coney Island, Manhattan Beach, Far Rockaway and Midland Beach and South Beach in Staten Island. Hundreds of thousands of people live in the zone.

The National Hurricane Center said Sunday that Sandy was expected to bring “life-threatening storm surge flooding” to the mid-Atlantic coast, including Long Island Sound and New York Harbor. The center said winds were expected to be near hurricane force near landfall.

(AP)