where hurricane sandy is running head long into the most populated areas of this country. the new york city region will be in the teeth of the storm tonight. already it s disrupted the city significantly. the new york stock exchange was shut down today and will be closed again tomorrow. major bridges and tunnels in and out of manhattan are closed or will stay closed or be closed soon. new york city s utility company, con ed sonsison is expecting re outages. tell us what s going on? we want to feel good about this. how is new york scrambling to deal with this? the good news is new york really isn t scrambling. we have a very well-organized office of emergency management, a command center with people staffing desks from every city agency, state agency, federal agency all working very cooperatively together. now, that said, this is an extreme storm. we have call for an evacuation of our zone a, that s 375,000
in new york city will shut down subways. last train tonight at 7:00, buses after 9:00. then the bridges and tunnels are still open right now. but if the wind picks up in that area, those two could shut down. you ve got the physical trading floor down here in lower manhattan, that will be closed down. also broadway shows will not have shows tonight or tomorrow and tuesday, we ll have to wait and see what happens there. that zone a, that low-lying area in and around lower manhattan as well as other boroughs, those mandatory evacuations are in place, it seems like people are taking this seriously. some of the people we talked to had been here during irene and some of them say oh, i might stay, and others are like, no, this seems to be a little more ominous. new yorkers can be stubborn when it comes to moving out like this. it does look beautiful so far tonight behind you. we re seeing people out early. it s pretty calm. the calm before the storm.
some 360,000 residents, most at threat, are being told to get out of harm s way. nbc s michelle franzen is live right now in that affected area. people are obeying this evacuation order and taking heed early or not. how is it going? well, i don t have a count on that entire 360,000, but it seems here in battery park city which is part of that zone a which you were mentioning is starting to heed those warnings. you ve got hotels in this area and a residential area. in the last few hours we ve seen more of a scramble for people to get out of their buildings. it is a mandatory evacuation in those areas. power could be turned off in those buildings. what they re really concerned about, thomas, is that storm surge. here where i m standing, we re hearing fro jexs of a surge, anywhere between six and 12 inches of the storm surge here. i would be standing in that water and maybe up to the knees or the waste at this point if those projections hold true. as a result the governor has issued tha
park. what are we seeing there? reporter: it s starting to pick up in terms of people scrambling to get out of here. it s been this way for several hours. the water behind me in the next day or so is expected to surge from six to 12 feet. where i m standing, thomas, i could with up to my knees or waist deep in water. it s part of the reason they are evacuating. it s known as zone a, some 370,000 people who have been told to pack up and move to safer areas in the city or to get out of the city. it s what many of them did, heeding the warnings today. some are opting to stay here today. you can see the lights on on the high-rise buildings here. that power could be turned off. we don t know yet. there could be other preparations under way to make room for the surges. it s what we have heard about all day. a big prep day in new york city, a subway system shut down.
we are, craig. we re in the zone a of the battery park city area that is known as the evacuation area. just one of the areas in manhattan that is going to be evacuated as well as along the other boroughs. the zone a affecting about 375,000 people in new york city. along the area. schools are also closed here in manhattan tomorrow. new york city s mayor michael bloomberg making that announcement earlier today. that affects about one million kids. he also said that more than 70 evacuation centers have been set up in and around new york city. there s some hotels down in this area, if you ve ever been to battery park city as a tourist or if you live in the area, you know that it is heavily populated area, residential. you ve also got the new york stock exchange, a lot of the trading floor. trading floor will be closed again tomorrow as well. also some announcements in new york city, that all broadway shows will be shut down tomorrow. as well as into tuesday. and so a lot of precautions