By Brai Odion-Esene

WASHINGTON (MNI) – President Barack Obama Monday warned that
Hurricane Sandy, set to make landfall on the East Coast of the United
States sometime this evening, will be a serious storm and that he is
worried about the impact on the fragile U.S. economy.

In statement to the press from the White House after his Situation
Room briefing on Hurricane Sandy, Obama noted that “obviously everyone
is aware at this point that this is going to be a big and powerful
storm.”

On the question of if he is concerned about the impact Sandy will
have on the Nov. 6 elections, Obama said his focus lies elsewhere.

“I’m not worried at this point about the impact on the election …
. I’m worried about the impact on our economy and on transportation,” he
said. “The election will take care of itself next week.”

“Right now, our number one priority is to make sure that we are
saving lives … and that we respond as quickly as possible to get our
economy back on track,” Obama added.

Transportation is going to be tied up “for a long time,” he warned,
with a significant impact also expected from the length of time it takes
to restore electricity following the storm.

“The public should anticipate that there’s going to be a lot of
power outages, and it may take time for the power to get back on,” the
president said.

“The is also true of transportation, there are going to be a lot of
backlogs. And even after the storm has cleared, it’s going to take a
considerable amount of time — for airlines, subways, trains and so
forth potentially — to get back on schedule,” he added.

Obama assured, however, that the government already has assets
positioned in those areas that will be the hardest-hit, so the resources
needed in the aftermath of the storm are already in place.

The current expectation is for the center of Hurricane Sandy to
make landfall sometime this evening, but Obama cautioned that the nature
of the storm means it will be “a slow-moving process through a wide
swathe of the country and millions of people are going to be affected.”

** MNI Washington Bureau: 202-371-2121 **

[TOPICS: M$U$$$,MGU$$$,MAUDS$]