Sandy NASA timelapse video shows Hurricane Sandy from space, from birth to current shape

As Sandy barrels down on the East Coast, NASA has released a timelapse of the superstorm, showing how it formed from its birth to its current state.

Much of New York was plunged into darkness Monday by a superstorm that overflowed the city's historic waterfront, flooded the financial district and subway tunnels and cut power to hundreds of thousands of people.

The city had shut its mass transit system, schools, the stock exchange and Broadway and ordered hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to leave home to get out of the way of the superstorm Sandy as it zeroed in on the nation's largest city.

Earlier Monday, another 1 million customers lost power in New York City, the northern suburbs and coastal Long Island, where floodwaters swamped cars, downed trees and put neighborhoods under water.

Associated Press contributed to this report.