Updated: Obama cancels campaign visit Wednesday to Akron, Ohio in Cleveland area as Hurricane Sandy has caused 48 deaths, 7.5 million customer power outages in 15 states including Ohio, 1 in 3 homes are without power in Cleveland, early voting restored in Maryland, Ohio sparred fatalities, Obama to resume campaigning Friday

Hurricane Sandy

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Executive Publisher, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog 
(www.clevelandurbannews.com)

CLEVELAND,Ohio-At least forty-eight people are dead, a third of them in New York alone, and over 7.5 million customers across the nation in 15 states and the District of Columbia are without power because of Hurricane Sandy. And as the presidential campaign enters its final week, the country is taken by storm literally, and by virtue of a neck and neck race to the White House that has the Republican and Democratic parties fighting each other tooth and nail to the finish line. 

A pivotal state, Ohio was hit by winds of 30 to 50 miles per hour Monday night and had no reported fatalities but did have  power outages in several of its 82 counties including Lorain, Lake, Geauga and Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland where one in three homes and businesses are without power.

President Obama headed to Washington, DC last weekend to deal with the disaster, which hit the east coast but impacted places like Ohio, and has canceled all campaign events for Wednesday,  Oct 31, including a scheduled rally in Akron, OH. 

Obama for America Campaign officials have not said that the president's visit to the Cleveland area will be rescheduled but did say that the president will resume campaigning on Friday and will attend rallies in Hillard and Springfield, Oh. Vice President Joe Biden and former president Bill Clinton campaigned in Ohio for Obama yesterday, both speaking at a rally in Youngstown. 

Akron is a city of roughly 200,000 people that is some 35 miles south of Cleveland. It has a pocket of Blacks that are constituents of the 11th congressional district, which is led by Ohio Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, a Warrensville Hts Democrat whose district also includes the east side of Cleveland and its eastern suburbs. 

From Maine to Delaware and New York to West Virginia nature's sweeping attack on America's homelands through a hurricane 700 miles wide that came packing robust wind and rain, Hurricane Sandy has caused airlines to cancel an estimated 13,000 flights and has aroused America in what meteorologists are calling "the perfect storm and a once-in--a-life-time weather disaster." 

Among the dead and the homeless are those taken by the super-storm in Newark , Connecticut and  New York City. There  hospitals have been evacuated and at least 80 homes have been destroyed by fire, most killed by falling debris and some electrocuted.

Early voting that had been halted in some states that have it like Maryland has resumed. 

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