Superstorm USA: Caught on Camera

Hi, I'm Sam. Here's our check on the global news channels.

"Battleground Gaza" was the RT headline. They were one of many to

lead on the renewed Middle East violence. Fox had a dramatic

eyewitness report from Israel as rockets landed.

China's CCTV introduced viewers to the country's new generation of

leaders, or, as Japan's NHK put it, their "new cheese". Xi Jinping now

leads the communist party. A warning about energy drinks on

ABC: officials are looking into claims that they are linked to

thirteen deaths. 5-hour Energy told them it only had the same caffeine

as a coffee. CNN asked, "Where's John McAfee?"

They were live in Belize. Police want to question the internet

security boss about the killing of a neighbour. The PM called him

bonkers. And Zlatan Ibrahimovic's amazing

goal was big in Sweden. TV4 said it wouldn't even be in a Hollywood

script. The man himself told SVT he felt the bicycle kick was his best

ever. Stay with Three now for Superstorm

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 57 seconds

This programme contains some strong language. This is the Apocalypse.

It's just before 6pm on Monday October 29, 16-year-old John Mateer

is about to record the superstorm which will hit his neighbourhood.

It's crazy. You see a face up against the glass. In a moment John

will film images that will become world famous. Oh, my God. Oh, my

God. Oh! Oh, my God. Shit, our tree. It hit your car. Oh, my God. It hit

my car. Oh, that car! The footage of the largest Atlantic superstorm

on record captured by those who witnessed it. From the Caribbean to

the major cities of America's East Coast, this was the first natural

disaster documented on personal phones and video cameras before,

Hurricane Sandy! Within moments of being recorded, images were

uploaded for all the world to see. We asked people who recorded them

to allow us to use their videos to show what happened from the

eyewitness point of view. With their cooperation and combined with

the footage we've shot ourselves, this is how Superstorm Sandy, one

of the biggest storms ever to hit the USA, was kaugtd on camera.

I'm going to film the individual quo for you, so you see the

devastation just a block from my house. This street is totally

blocked and the cars are pretty I'm Scott McPartland and I've been

storm chasing since I was 13 years old. You can clearly see the

rotation. Clearly see it. It's kicking up a heck of a lot of dust.

Over the years my fascination of storms has grown into what is

essentially a career for me now. This is what we're protecting from

right here. This fell like two minutes ago, easily a three-inch

hail stone, super spiky - whoa, I didn't see that! As well as being

one of America's most famous storm chasers, Scott McPartland is

meriorologist. When the superstorm was first detected he was on the

case. I remember a week out, some of the forecast models were showing

a hit in the mid-Atlantic and north-east. This was completely

outlandish at the time. Nobody had seen anything like that. Haiti, in

the Caribbean, was first to feel the effects. Flooding killed 52

people, caused food shortages and The superstorm headed north, the

next day, October 23, the Bahamas issued a tropical storm watch and

at 3pm sandy was upgraded to hurricane status. Two people died

and the structural damage is estimated to run into many millions

of dollars. By this time, when Sandy was in the Bahamas, she was

growing substantially. The storm was huge. I believe at one point

almost a thousand miles wide. after 5am, on October 25, Hurricane

Sandy twisted and made landfall in Cuba's second biggest city,

Vanessa and Kieran Ash, both 25, from Stoke-on-Trent, were getting

married at the tourist resort of Guardalavaca and had taken 17

Everybody started to panic a bit, especially when you could see the

really dark, grey clouds with the rain in the distance coming over

the hills. Told to go to their rooms, Vanessa and her husband and

two-year-old daughter, took refuge in the bathroom. The wind was

roaring around the building. You could hear is swooshing through the

vents and you could hear the wind hitting things against the wall. I

think that was the scariest part. We felt scared for our lives is the

best way to describe it. I went to the patio door windows and peaked

round the curtain. The glass was bending and creeking. Soy got my

mobile phone and the camcorder wand as getting footage to remember

exactly what we had gone through. I hid behind the curtains for about

ten seconds and ran back into the room because I was so terrified

that the window was going to come through.

Next day, Vanessa films the damage, the hotel was flooded and there was

destruction everywhere. Normally these storms when they start,

especially this late in the season, they ride up the East Coast. You

have a cold front that's swinging through the east, picks it up and

sends her safely out to sea. At sea, the storm caught up with the Disney

Fantasy, cruising the Atlantic, 2,000 passengers, many of whom

recorded the action and uploaded it Hurricane Sandy on our Disney

Fantasy Cruise 2012. We're in the middle of the ocean. Not a fun day

to be on a boat. Ready for the hurricane? Yeah! Ready, go! Whoa!

When this footage was uploaded many believed the ship had take anyone

sea water, but it was actually water from the indoor paddling pool

being tossed and turned by the hurricane. Online, this video was

presented by swuesswuesswues aged eight from Florida. Last night, we

went through a hurricane. The gift shops are all messed up. All the

toys are on the floor. Also the desks. I was surprised because a

really big desk was here. Even in the jewellery shops. All the

jewellery fell too. Over here. It was very hard last night. Can you

see over here, a bunch of presents fell, like a whole rack on the

floor. You can see back over there, you'll get a better view this way,

back there, you could see that all the watches and necklaces and all

crammed up in there. Most of the things broke and that's what

happened on the Disney cruise last night. The other thing with

Hurricane Sandy that prevented her from going safely out to sea was we

had another storm in the North Atlantic Hurricane Tony, blocking

her escape. This was what was going to pull her back towards the East

Coast. What ended up happening was kind of a guide track that pulled

her straight up and this trough of low pressure phased with her and

pulled her into the Jersey coastline. This was something we've

never seen before. The phasing of these two systems was going to

ininject a large amount of energy into Sandy. In turn, she would grow

into a superstorm. As the superstorm approached, the

authorities began to issue warnings. We should plan to see heavy rain

that lasts for 36 hours once the storm starts to hit, flooding is

very real and serious concern. The hard reality is even if we do

everything, we can't stop the storm. Continuing to move north on October

28th, the first winds and rain hit Hatteras Island, a narrow strip

reaching from North Carolina into the Atlantic. A local estate agent

recorded the storm's arrival. can almost see it through the

It's just eating away the sand right there.

We're dough to try to get up there at some point. We're worried about

downed power lines and typical hazards. This way, over my shoulder,

looks deeper towards waves. But I'm going to try to give you a look at

the ocean. Let's see if we can see the waves coming through. Those are

the waves coming through. Those are pretty big. Really big.

It's hard to nail down exactly where it would come ashore. But it

didn't matter because the storm was so massive everybody was going to

As the superstorm threatened a warning message from the President

himself. This is a serious and big storm. My first message is to all

the people across the eastern sea board, mid-Atlantic, going north

board, mid-Atlantic, going north that you need to take this very

seriously. Regardless of the warnings many people went out to

the coast to record their own piece of history. There was complacency

because we didn't have anything to pull from and say, remember how bad

it was last time? There was no last time. Of course, had you all these

people, I call them the looky-loos. They want to come out and see it.

It was very hard to get that point across, because I had heard time

and again stories like "Well I've been here for 45 years. It's never

been as bad as they say it's going to be." Cheese! Say Hurricane

Some people taking on the turbulent ocean was too good a photo

opportunity to miss. Reckless out there, man. I don't even feel cold

now. I think it's the hypothermia kicking in.

That's what I live for, hurricanes like this, hurricanes like

Hurricane Sandy. On Long Island, New York, John

Mateer and his sister were like many others. They thought they'd

heard all the scare stories before. I actually wasn't expecting much. I

wasn't here for Hurricane Irene. I was at college. I have never

experienced anything like this before. Me and my friends were

texting about what we might do tonight. We weren't prepared at all.

We were preparing for like the power to be out for like, I don't

know, two days, I don't know. weren't preparing for destruction.

To give you an example, people were posting, I was one of those people,

I posted on Twitter, like "Thanks for the day off. Nothing's

happening." The wind was blowing. There was no rain ierblg. It was

getting dark. Nothing bad was We are going to have a very, very

large area affected by strong winds, a storm fall and heavy rainfall.

We should not underestimate the impact of the storm or assume that

predictions will be wrong. I know, probably through all my life too,

people will be saying that this is not going to happen. That the

weathermen do get it wrong. That we will hang out and pay attention to

this. Please, don't. Be prepared for the worst.

By now the superstorm had killed up to 70 people. On the ground people

had filmed floods and structural damage. The superstorm was heading

for the world famous Jersey Shore with winds speeds of up to 80mph.

Five days now... Filming it all was New Jersey's most prolific social

media blogger, Alexander Higgins, with more than 3 million viewers on

his YouTube channel. This is Alexander Higgins, I am on

Bridge Avenue. The first I heard of this was online. We are here at the

Napa Auto Centre. You can see that Hurricane Sandy is here. This roof

is continuing to blow off under the force of the winds. We have

widespread destruction from the winds in Point Pleasant.

Across the road we can see that the shingles are blowing off. I went

down to different disaster point areas to collect videos and photos

to put online. Here we are at the Pizza Hut. This is Brick Boulevard.

We have another downed tree here. Trees are down everywhere.

As he videoed more evidence that the superstorm had hit New Jersey,

Alexander Higgins posted it on line. We are here on Bridge Avenue in

Bayhead. This telephone wire pole here, we have sparks flying off it.

As you can see, there is a tree down right here. This is just

across the entire road. These wires right here are flapping off of the

telephone pole. Sparks are flying off this wire.

Now this is a big tree that has been uprooted right here in front

of us. With Sandy, the disaster is

imminent. You see it coming ashore it is my responsibility to let

others know that this is heading their way.

I just really felt that I had to let people know on Twitter or

Facebook that by this time tomorrow your house is going to be under

water. To get out of there now, to This YouTube user posted videos of

a flooded street in Bayhead, New Jersey. His grandmother, aunts and

cousin were stranded. Canoes were used for rescue missions.

If you are still able to hear me, we need you to hunker down and get

to the highest point possible in the dwelling you are in. We cannot

help until day light tomorrow. Defences were going up in Manhattan,

New York. North of New Jersey, the storm had not reached yet, but

people were taking precautions and filming the drama.

I was going to walk into the shop Trader Joe's, then I saw the line.

This is unusual. This is about 12.00pm. There is a

line around the block for Trader Joe's to get into the store. You

would think there was a rock concert going on in there. There is

not. For a quality of video stand-point,

it is dreadful, but it tell as story of a long line of people and

even a Trader Joe's employee, helping people, so they were not on

the path of other people on the sidewalk. It was impulsive to get

that shock. I am glad that I did. A lot of people are watching.

We had a lot of lead time. I am Anthony da Rosa. There was at least

a day or two days when people were going through how they were going

to prepare for this storm. People were stocking up on food, talking

about how the stores that they were going to was running out of items.

So there are a lot of phonows on the videos of the panic beforehand.

Of people trying to get material that they could have in their homes

before the storm. Getting candles, flashlights, food.

Why is this empty? What happened? There are no eggs, what happened?

It is because of the Hurricane Sandy. Have you got milk? Oh, my

God! By 5pm the bread was gone. Where is the bread? The bread is

gone! One man went on to YouTube to proudly explain he was prepared for

the worst. This is on my phone, I wanted to

make a video. I have candles there. Batteries, always need those things.

Zippo fluid for my Zippo as you always need to make fire. Water.

You know it is really unlikely that something will happen with the

regular water, but it is better to be safe than sorry. It sounds like

it could be a pretty serious storm. So here we go, a bunch of stuff you

don't have to cook to eat. Especially for me, you know canned

stuff. I have an electric stove so, if the power goes out I will not be

able to cook everything. Also I got charcoal to cook after the storm

has passed, if the need be. I have to get out of here. I am getting

seawater in the engine. Scott McPartland was following the storm

and witnessed neighbourhoods fighting a losing battle.

We drove up to Bayside in Queens. There, there were neighbourhoods

under water. That is when I thought this is going to be terrible. This

was ten hours away from the storm. Then we knew that this would be bad.

The outlying areas of New York City began to feel the first effects of

the superstorm on October 29th. This was Breezy Point on the Bore

accounting of Queens on the Atlantic coast.

People were trying to catch their own moment of Superstorm Sandy.

Breezy Point is part of the Rockaway particular, it is home to

many Irish immigrants, so many it is known as the Irish Riviera. In

this bar, the customers did not look like they were worried too

much about the building superstorm. Have a pot where there is a drip...

To miles along the coast in Wantagh, 16-year-old John Mateer was told to

take the day off school. From here, I saw the wind blowing.

I was standing here with my camera. Filming the wind. I am used to

filming stuff and sending it to people and joke being it. I film a

lot of stuff. I was just pulling it out to film the gust of wind and

possibly send it to a friend. This is the apocalypse! Oh, shit! That

creeped me out. Did you see a face? It was up against the glass.

That's when mayhem struck. Oh, my God. Oh, my God! Oh! Oh, my

God. Shit, our tree! It hit your car. Oh, my God. It hit my car?!

got that all on film. Oh, my God! What happened? The car got crushed.

What? Oh, my gosh! You're lucky. Erin... Your car bounced, though.

The back is completely destroyed, John.

I was in shock. Then it hit me we should not be by the wind we are at

all. There is a fire, Dad! Oh, my gosh!

There ain't nothing that I can do about that. OK, get away from the

trees. I got that all on film, you guys.

Oh, my gosh! Show me that video! Here is a satellite image of

Hurricane Sandy just prior to landing. About four or five hours

before. The first thing that you notice is how huge this is. It

literally takes up the entire screen.

A time lapse camera captured the superstorm sweeping towards

Manhattan Island and the rain arriving. The USA's commercial and

cultural capital, 1.5 million people crammed into 23 square miles.

The New York Stock Exchange closed, thousands had fled and many more

had locked themselves behind doors, but some were out filming. Here, a

drain was swaying dangerously. In a nearby hotel, robin and Lou Gillard

were recording this message. You have to evacuate the building.

Due to the possibility that the crane up the street, above the

construction site might fall. So, please, in an orderly manner, make

your way to the nearest staircase and exit the building through the

hotel lobby. But then part of the crane crashed.

The hotel told people to stay indoors. Then Lou was heading

The levels along the coasts and along the waterways began to rise.

They were expected to remain at higher than normal levels for the

next 24 hours. The surge will be about 8.00pm tonight, plus or minus

a couple of hours. Michele Mitchell went out in the

storm to record images on her mobile phone.

I ran into folks on the Upper West Side, and they said that they

watched the video. She remembers the moment when the

city started to lose power and the seawater surged.

I realised that electricity was not working. The Wi-Fi had gone. The

cable had gone. Then I could hear a Mac truck coming down the street...

I kept looking alt Downtown Manhattan, so all of this went dark.

This was the moment when the lights went out in Downtown Manhattan. It

was 8.30pm. A electricity substation explodes after it fills

with seawater. We stood outside and could watch

the transformers blowing up. What is going on? I don't know what

is going on? What is this? Something just exploded.

It looked like a bomb was hitting On 14th street Brian Trombley

leaned out of the window of his sixth-floor apartment to capture

footage of the storm hitting Downtown Manhattan. Whoa! Shit.

What just happened? What just happened? Next door, the same

collapse was also filmed by Mark Oh, my gosh. There is no wall for

these apartments. No F-ing walls on No heat, no power, no water. The

buildings started loseing water pressure. In many cases you were

camping in your apartments. It became deserted. If you had the

means to get out, you did. It looked like it was something out of

that movie I Am Legend. It was completely deserted. The camera

recorded candles and flash lights appearing in the buildings at the

bottom of the shot. When I went to shoot the video at my neighbourhood

restaurant, I walk in and there they were. Bonjour Michel, c'estVa.

There was Michel serving hamburgers. What power are you use sning Gas. -

- Using? Gas. How many people have you served today? This is

incredible. I don't know. It's OK. On the night of the storm nothing

was working. But I had a crank radio. I left my house and had the

radio with me. I was cranking it and listening to the records on the

radio of what had been going on. That was the most useful technology

that I had when the power went out. Surging sea water flooded all ten

tunnels between Manhattan, Brooklyn and Long Island. The flooding of

mid-town tunnel was filmed by Louis Bejarano. I'm in the news business.

Until I got on the streets and shot these streets of Soho, and people

showing ingenious ways of getting their businesses up and running,

you didn't see those stories. You started to see it more in

mainstream media. Social media shaped the coverage of this

disaster. There were nearly 15,000 emergency calls to the New York

Fire Department. Ten times the usual number. Social media, Twitter

and Facebook were monitored throughout and played a vital role.

27Th Street. I'm Emily Rahini, the social media manager for the fire

department. It's ten social media channels. Most of it is focused on

Facebook, Twitter and U tube. It was busy that night. I'd leave my

desk for two mib its and come back to 150tweets. This woman says her

parents are trapped in their home on Staten Island. I contacted

dispatchers to make sure that they 200 firefighters were called to

Breezy Point in Queen's where just hours earlier residents had posed

for photographs and drunk in the bar as storms lashed the seafront.

There was 25 civilians on the roof of the building. The fire was

spreading? The fire was in the two- storey building next door. It was

When dawn broke and the fires were finally put out, this was all that

was left of Breezy Point. An electrical fault was blamed for the

This high-definition video was shot by Roy Currlin, an Irish man who

Roy doesn't expect to be able to move back into his home for six

months. Also gone, 2,700 more houses, all flooded out. The

shopping centre, two churches, a bar and a liquor store, Breezy

Filmed by the US Coastguard, this The home of East Coast legalised

gambling it was at the centre of the superstorm when it made

landfall. Most of the iconic boardwalk, America's first and more

than 140 years old, had been smashed to pieces. Land marks made

famous by TV series such as boardwalk empire were reduced to

rubble. The city's 12 casinos were Along the coastline, storm chaser

Scott McPartland went filming. that boat was initially over here

and then was swept up. You can see the foundation right here. Oh, yes.

House shifted to the left. You can see everything under here, all the

water, the pipes broke up there. Literally when the storm surge came

in, obviously it moved this boat. This was not the originally

location of this boat. It literally moved the foundation or moved the

house off its foundation. Several feet off its foundation. You look

at the damage to the coastline, it's tremendous and so widespread.

You know, boardwalks decimated. Homes decimated. There are boats in

the middle of the street. Boats in the middle of people's homes. A

boat has landed. Amazing, DJ Gerano recording this. Look at this,

another boat, jet ski, amazing, looks like a war zone out here,

ladies and gentleman, a war zone. There's so much devastation, it's

comparable to any Hurricane I've ever seen. A lot of things came

together to make Sandy the storm she was. The size of the storm, the

size of the wind field, the amount of water that was being pushed, the

phasing with the system that was coming through the midwest and into

the east and the all important track. You put those things

together and then you tack on a full moon on p to -- top of that,

worst case scenario. A scenario of rising tides of torrential rain

meant devastating floods along the East Coast of the USA. At Hatteras

Island the estate agents ventured out with cameras again. This is

Kurt and Jason recording with Outer Beaches Realty. This is caisy out

here. Actually we made -- crazy out here. Actually we made our way to

the Green Lantern, the first house on the right. It leaves us

speechless. So we're just going to go ahead and show you what we see

We are in ocean City New Jersey. Several people on this block have

indeed stayed. Oh, looks like Chris's car is totally under water

down there. High tide should be going down. The streets are totally

gone. And our steps... Under the house. The water finds a way. Water

finds a way in. It will do what it wants. It will go where it wants.

It doesn't care about your personal belongings or this you just bought

or that you just bought. It's going to wreck everything. On Staten

Island, when the water was too dangerous Forres cue boats, Pablo

Cruz, a Mexican, filmed people Holy shit. Located at the back of

New York harbour, Staten Island had 21 people died on Staten Island,

mostly through drowning. Half the total number of those killed by the

New York City closed its 468 subway stations during the assume storm.

But that didn'tston the flooding. When the 14-foot storm surge hit

down town, it was only going one way, downwards.

This may be slipy. Across the East Coast of America, the total

commercial and personal damage is estimated at up to $50 billion. The

Metropolitan Transit Authority went underground to film one of its

There was no escape for cars, left Inland, the problem was not floods,

but falling trees. Having recorded his famous video, John Mateer was

forced to take cover. We stayed in the basement all night

and we emerged in the morning. This was the view from our window. It

was crazy. You couldn't even look at it because there was just a

gigantic tree in the way. There is a picture of a, an entire tree

covering our house. So we basically live in a tree house. This one was

the tree in front of our house, the reason why we couldn't get out of

our house. We had to climb under the trunk, which was an interesting

feat. It shows the neighbour's car there. I'm a curious person. I like

to film things. I post things on social media and everything.

Brooklyn journalist Becky Griffin had had to stay indoors during the

storm. Once it was safe to go out, she filmed with her mobile phone.

This was just way too crazy to take still photos of. So I'm going to

film the video for you, so you see the devastation just a block away

from my house. This street is totally blocked. --

blocked by the tree and the cars are pretty much ruined underneath

it. Here's the first one. And the second one. And the third one

caught too. More cars stuck and ruined. I don't even know how to

walk past this thing. I was shocked. I was totally

shocked. A bunch of thoughts were running through my head at the same

time. First one was - oh, my God. Never seen anything like this. And

the second was - thank God people weren't hurt.

There's another big one that just came out on the street. And that

one was on the house. So yeah, I filmed it and I pretty

much called the video, you know I wrote "counting my blessings". See

one, two. And another one. Three. Wow. There's trees down in the

neighbourhood, wires down and it feels like you're in a war zone,

but it's strange because this is where I grew up. This is where I've

lived my whole life. I've never had something like this hit so close to

The insurance came said it was a loss. It was crushed by the tree,

so we will get nothing back. looks like something from a movie

set. I cannot imagine it is my car. The second car received damage from

the same tree. There is also damage in the back yard. We will show you.

There is too much structural damage on the roof from weight of the tree

falling on it. It ripped the sheet metal off the door. We thought from

that side it looks like nothing happened, but obviously the whole

door was ripped off it looked like somebody came in from the movie,

Terminator. That is just what happened in the front yard. From

the back yard, there is more damage. Remember the The Wizard of Oz? It

looks like when the house fell on the witch. There are no words for

this... This happened later on at night, whether it was darker. We

didn't see this tree falling this way. We heard something. Terese

said look out of the window, the shed is not where it is supposed to

be. It is unbelievable how nature can pick this whole thing up. The

shed is in tact. There nothing wrong with this. As horrific as it

looks we are all here to talk about it. It is just things. We are

fortunate no-one got hurt. This is Alexander Higgins.

Here is my street... I am driving down it.

Back at Jersey Shore, Alexander Higgins is still reporting on the

superstorm, but now the story had come directly home.

All my neighbourhood lost everything. We are all... We are

all pretty much devastated by all of this.

This is my son's girlfriend's, he is only seven. You can see that

every single street... Here is my aunt and uncle's house. Even with

all of the stuff that they have in there, they have not even moved out

10% of their stuff. That is my neighbour, Jay. This is

my house. This is all of my property.

It's just like an absolute war zone. Everybody got hit. Hard.

A few days after filming the video for YouTube, Alex took us around

what remained of his house. There is a little over here.

This is my daughter's old room. It was decorated like a little

princess castle. She is daddy's princess. Daddy's little girl.

Purple was her favourite colour. Cleaning this room out was probably

the hardest. Taking out all of the memories. Little baby socks. Her

toys. They were all in here. Her barbis.

DBarbies. This room right here was my room where I had tens of

thousands of dollars of electronic equipment. Networking equipment.

Servers, my blog. Thats with my life, that is now wiped out. I

don't have a job or income coming in now. That was destroyed.

Insurance does not cover him for flooding, but prompted by the

videos he has prosted online, friends have set up a Facebook page

to raise money for the family as it rebuilds.

So far, they have raised $8,000. Everywhere people were having to

cope with the fallout of the superstorm. Everywhere it was

recorded on video. We can call the police? Call the

police. We have two hours here. This is not fair! This was Nutley,

New Jersey. Panic-buying at the gas stations,

it threatened to get out of control when a driver jumped the queue.

People who had been waiting hours to fill up, turned on the driver.

OK. You know what? You know what? We are a community here too. No.

You are not going to have gas. Local maths teacher, Dan Grecko,

came out with his camera to film the action.

They say you are jumping the line. Don't yell. I can hear in this spot.

I take from this line. Not this. but there is a line. Regardless of

if you drop down. You have to back out.

What's fair is fair. Thank you, officer.

Dan Grecko said he carried out the filming to embarrass the driver

into respecting the people who had been waiting for hours to fill up.

Thank you, buddy. Hey, how long you been in line,

buddy? One-and-a-half hours. I wouldn't mind, but this is not fair.

And he saw the line. Yeah, how can you miss that? How can you miss

that? Before, during and after the US superstorm, a new generation

skilled in text and video were able to help to report and even make

jokes about one of the biggest natural disasters in American

history. Social media was the biggest source

of actual information to get out to, not only New Yorkers, but also, you

know, all over the world. You turn on the TV, you see all of these

reporters out in the storm. You can't really hear what they are

saying as they are cut off. The wind is going on. So, OK, you are

getting a crazy weather report, but the real information was coming on

social media. People were taking pictures by their homes. People

writing what is going on. This is the apocalypse.

It kind of made main stream media look outdated.

How do you feel looking at it now? I mean, it, at first when I first

looked at it. I was surprised that people were making jokes about it.

I thought this was not funny. We were scared about it. Our voices

sound a little dramatic. I am a little dramatic.

In our family, we are like that! REPORTER: How many views has it

had? On here it take as while to update, but it almost 1 million.

That is a lot. Someone Auto-Tuneed our clip to be

a music video, basically. We were laughing at it at first.

# Oh, my God # I got that on film

# Oh, my God the car got crushed # There is a fire there

# Oh, my God # There is nothing you can do about

that! # I was expecting people to be interested in it. It is not

aften you see it like that. I was a -- expecting attention, but not

that much that this clip got. But there was a darker side when

the storm broke. There were a lot of tweets that

were just not accurate. Like the Fire Department headquarters were

evacuating. I tweeted to this person that was

not the case. I knew it was not as I was sitting at my desk, but I

wanted to ensure that people were not worried. A few people re-

tweeted. I had to ensure I was staying on top of those. To ensure

people that was not the case before that bad information spread further.

You have to be careful. People give misinformation through social media.

The one good thing, though, about the social media, it tends to shoot

down misinformation a lot quicker than other platforms as there are

so many people that can see information that is flowing through,

pick it up and say that is not correct. With television it seems

that often it takes a little longer for that misinformation to be shot

down. After he had film the falling trees,

John Mateer carried on filming for us. He was on the spot to become

this film's very own weather man. You were completely terrified that

tomorrow there would be a north- easter, which is a store, a big

storm coming. That is a week after Hurricane Sandy hit! So, I'm at the

school. It is about 11.00am. The north-easter is just beginning.

It is raining. There is a little bit of wind, but it is supposed to

get worse halfway through the day. So it is freezing. My hand is numb

from holding the phone. Oh, my God do you see that? It is like

blizzarding out! John Mateer is just one example of the new breed

of camera people, who, thanks to technology has transformed way that

we report the news. People are putting content on

YouTube. It make it is more competitive for the professional

videoographers and photographers out in the field. OK, so, hey you

guys it is the day after the north- easter.

We now have to compete with a guy with a cellphone.

The news, it seems, has changed for good.

It is crazy how much snow there is. There is snow days after Hallowe'en.

That make no, sir sense! We have become used to the appalling images

of what nature can throw at us. Tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanos,

but it is not just for its destruction that Hurricane Sandy

will be remembered. More than 100 people dead, homes wrecked, and

lives shattered. The bill for damage is running into billions.

This is a serious and big storm. should not underestimate the impact

of the storm or assume that predictions will be wrong.

But Superstorm Sandy also will be remembered as the first natural

disaster where at each and every stage, the images were captured by

eyewitnesses who witnessed its full might and awesome power.

Oh, my God! Plg -- Ready, go! Hurricane Sandy! A natural disaster

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 57 seconds

Hi, I'm Sam, with the day's entertainment news on Three.

Former Radio 1 DJ Dave Lee Travis has tonight been released on bail.

It follows his arrest this morning on suspicion of sexual offences. He

had denied previous claims. ITV has taken disciplinary action

at This Morning after Phillip Schofield showed the PM a list of

alleged paedophiles. The network and presenter have apologised.

Emily Atack has had death threats on Twitter. The Inbetweeners star

said it was the most vicious thing she had ever been sent. Police are

investigating. A judge in LA has thrown out a case

involving a paparazzo who chased Justin Bieber. He was followed at

high speed. The photographer still faces charges of reckless driving.