President Obama met with FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate at the agency’s headquarters on Sunday. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

President Obama canceled a campaign event in Orlando, Fla. today and will instead return to D.C. ahead of originally scheduled in order to monitor the progress of Hurricane Sandy, the White House said.

The colossal storm, which is churning its way onto the East Coast, is throwing a meteorological wrench into the final days of the presidential campaign. For Obama, the hurricane will be an episode that tests his ability to manage a domestic emergency, while both his and Mitt Romney’s campaigns are rescheduling their events around the storm.

Romney canceled three events in Virginia yesterday, and instead went to Ohio. A Virginia event scheduled for tomorrow featuring his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, has been called off, too.

With Sandy’s path including North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, the storm also throws into peril campaign plans for several battleground states. Particularly in Virginia, Politico reports, the effects of Hurricane Sandy on transportation and electricity could severely impact the campaigns’ plans to drive up voter turnout.

But there’s one clear benefit of having a massive hurricane bear down on the region. Both campaigns suspended their daily barrages of fundraising emails to voters in the states affected by Hurricane Sandy.