As Hurricane Sandy begins pounding the northeast coast of the United States, at least one Manitoban who lives there says she is not worried about the storm.

A total of 50 million people are threatened as Hurricane Sandy is set to make landfall along the New Jersey coast Monday night, then collide with two other weather systems.

That is expected to create a superstorm in the most heavily populated corridor of the U.S., with the potential for havoc on an area stretching more than 1,250 kilometres from the East Coast to the Great Lakes.

Raena Mina of Winnipeg, who currently lives on Manhattan's lower east side, says New York was calm over the weekend as people waited for the storm to hit.

Mina told CBC News that Monday morning has started as a grey day with light rain, and New Yorkers do not appear panicked so far.

However, she added that people felt inconvenienced when the city shut down the subway system.

"It was just crazy in that sense, but not in terms of people panicking or anything. You know, a lot of people were out. It's like the calm before the storm," Mina said.

"It was a little bit windy but, like, not that crazy, and it only started raining probably at around 6 a.m."

Mass transit in New York and several other cities is shut down, thousands of airline flights are cancelled, schools are closed, and the floor of the world's biggest stock exchange is silent on Monday.

Mina said there are concerns about major flooding in the area, especially in low-lying areas and in the underground subway system.

"Flooding, that's what they're scared of; that's why they shut things down. But in terms of people's places, I'm not scared of flooding," she said.