Funny, I was looking at the storm track and it was pretty obvious for at least 36 hours that the storm was going to hit the Jersey shore at a right angle. The reason it did that was that it ran directly into a cold front from the north east, a northern hurricane. Plus the flooding of NO came from the Lake, after the storm had just missed the city. It was then that the canals betrayed the city. But anyone in the city could guess what was going to happen: the surge comes in from the South augmenting the high tide, and essentially damming up the Hudson. The whole thing then spills over lower Manhattan and the Hudson is deflected west into New Jersey. The real surprise was the size of the surge. No one could calculate that.
Yes, no one could calculate what the surge was going to do.
“The real surprise was the size of the surge. No one could calculate that.”
News12 NJ said that 80% of NJ would be without power, a day before the storm hit. They knew (from Irene last year) that this would be worse, since the high tide and storm surge coincided with a full moon.