Update -- Hurricane Sandy is now expected to blow ashore in New jersey or Delaware by this evening -- hours sooner than previously expected.

The storm has picked up some forward speed. It's already washed away a part of the Atlantic City Boardwalk. And it's threatening to cripple Wall Street and New York's subway system with a huge surge of seawater.

By mid afternoon, the storm was 85 miles southeast of Atlantic City, its winds at 90 miles an hour. Forecasters warn it will combine with two other weather systems to create an epic superstorm.

From Washington to Boston, subways, buses, trains and schools are shut down. More than 7,000 flights are grounded. The New York Stock Exchange is closed. And hundreds of thousands of people are under orders to move to higher ground.

With just over a week to go before Election Day, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are suspending their campaigning. After returning to the White House from Florida, Obama urged those in harm's way to ``listen to what your state and local officials are saying.''

With tropical storm-force winds extending almost 500 miles from the storm's center, other major cities across the Northeast also prepared to for the worst. Maryland's governor warns that people will die in the storm.

Earlier -- Forecasters say Hurricane Sandy is about 310 miles (505 kilometers) south-southeast of New York City, and the center of the storm is expected to be near the mid-Atlantic coast on Monday night.

The National Hurricane Center said early Monday that the storm has top sustained winds of 85 mph (140 kph), with higher gusts. It is moving toward the north-northwest at 20 mph (32 kph). Hurricane-force winds extend up to 175 miles (280 kilometers) from the storm's center.

Sandy is on track to collide with a wintry storm moving in from the west and cold air streaming down from the Arctic.

Major metropolitan areas from Washington to Boston are bracing for what is expected to be a superstorm that could menace some 50 million people in the most heavily populated corridor in the nation.

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