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UN Suffers 'Unprecedented Damage' from Sandy

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The United Nations Headquarters building is seen in New York. (AP)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The headquarters of the United Nations overlooking New York's East River suffered "unprecedented damage" from Superstorm Sandy, the U.N. management chief said Thursday.

Yukio Takasu told the General Assembly at the end of its first session following the killer storm that the most serious damage was from flooding, which affected many basement offices and the cooling system in the main Secretariat building and caused a small fire.

U.N. safety and security chief Gregory Starr told the 193-member world body that the flooding also affected many electrical components and tore the sheeting off the top of the Secretariat building.

The sprawling U.N. complex is undergoing its first major renovation since it opened 60 years ago at a cost of about $2 billion.

Some of the 3,000 staffers forced to move to temporary offices around Manhattan recently started returning to the 39-story Secretariat building. Another 2,000 have remained on the 17-acre (6.8-hectare) site, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other senior officials, who work in a temporary building constructed just north of the main one, which was not affected by Sandy.

During a tour of the U.N.'s third and bottom basement, an AP correspondent saw staff members mopping floors and some areas nearest the East River still flooded. Among the hard-hit areas were the U.N. receiving office, mail and supply rooms, where staffers said perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of equipment, paper and supplies were damaged.

"This extreme weather event caused unprecedented damage on U.N. premises from Monday to Tuesday," Takasu told the General Assembly.

He said that because of damage to the cooling system the U.N. Security Council moved a meeting Wednesday afternoon to the temporary building on the north lawn.

 

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Exasperation Builds on Day 3 in Storm-Stricken NYC

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Dry ice is unloaded from a flatbed truck in Union Square for distribution to residents of the still powerless Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan Thursday, Nov.1, in New York. (AP)

NEW YORK (AP) - Frustration - and in some cases fear - mounted in New York City on Thursday, three days after superstorm Sandy hit the city. Traffic backed up for miles at bridges, large crowds waited impatiently for buses into Manhattan, and tempers flared in gas lines.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city would send bottled water and ready-to-eat meals into the hardest-hit neighborhoods through the weekend, but some New Yorkers grew dispirited after days without power, water and heat and decided to get out.

"It's dirty, and it's getting a little crazy down there," said Michael Tomeo, who boarded a bus to Philadelphia with his 4-year-old son. "It just feels like you wouldn't want to be out at night. Everything's pitch dark. I'm tired of it, big-time."

Rima Finzi-Strauss decided to take the bus to Washington. When the power went out Monday night in her apartment building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, it also disabled the electric locks on the front door, she said.

"We had three guys sitting out in the lobby last night with candlelight, and very threatening folks were passing by in the pitch black," she said. "And everyone's leaving. That makes it worse."

The mounting despair came even as the subways began rolling again after a three-day shutdown. Service was restored to most of the city, but not the most stricken parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, where the tunnels were flooded.

Bridges into the city were open, but police enforced a carpooling rule and peered into windows to make sure each car had at least three people. The rule was meant to ease congestion but appeared to worsen it. Traffic jams stretched for miles, and drivers who made it into the city reported that some people got out of their cars to argue with police.

Rosemarie Zurlo said she planned to leave Manhattan for her sister's place in Brooklyn because her own apartment was freezing, "but I'll never be able to come back here because I don't have three people to put in my car."

With only partial subway service, lines at bus stops swelled. More than 1,000 people packed the sidewalk outside an arena in Brooklyn, waiting for buses to Manhattan. Nearby, hundreds of people massed on a sidewalk.

When a bus pulled up, passengers rushed the door. A transit worker banged on a bus window, yelled at people inside, and then yelled at people in the line.

With the electricity out and gasoline supplies scarce, many gas stations across the New York area remained closed, and stations that were open drew long lines of cars that spilled out onto roads.

At a station near Coney Island, almost 100 cars lined up, and people shouted and honked, and a station employee said he had been spit on and had coffee thrown at him.

In a Brooklyn neighborhood, a station had pumps wrapped in police tape and a "NO GAS" sign, but cars waited because of a rumor that gas was coming.

"I've been stranded here for five days," said Stuart Zager, who is from Brooklyn and was trying to get to his place in Delray Beach, Fla. "I'm afraid to get on the Jersey Turnpike. On half a tank, I'll never make it."

The worst was over at least for public transportation. The Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North were running commuter trains again, though service was limited. New Jersey Transit had no rail service but most of its buses were back.

The storm killed at least 90 people in the U.S. New York City raised its death toll on Thursday to 38, including two Staten Island boys, 2 and 4, swept from their mother's arms by the floodwaters.

In New Jersey, many people were allowed back into their neighborhoods Thursday for the first time since Sandy ravaged the coastline. Some found minor damage, others total destruction.

The storm cut off barrier islands, smashed homes, wrecked boardwalks and hurled amusement park rides into the sea. Atlantic City, on a barrier island, remained under mandatory evacuation.

More than 4.6 million homes and businesses, including about 650,000 in New York and its northern suburbs, were still without power. Consolidated Edison, the power company serving New York, said electricity should be restored by Saturday to customers in Manhattan and to homes and offices served by underground power lines in Brooklyn.

In darkened neighborhoods, people walked around with miner's lamps on their foreheads and bicycle lights clipped to shoulder bags and, in at least one case, to a dog's collar. A Manhattan handyman opened a fire hydrant so people could collect water to flush toilets.

"You can clearly tell at the office, or even walking down the street, who has power and who doesn't," said Jordan Spiro, who lives in the blackout zone. "New Yorkers may not be known as the friendliest bunch, but take away their ability to shower and communicate and you'll see how disgruntled they can get."

Some public officials expressed exasperation at the relief effort.

James Molinaro, president of the borough of Staten Island, suggested that people not donate money to the American Red Cross because the Red Cross "is nowhere to be found."

"We have hundreds of people in shelters throughout Staten Island," he said. "Many of them, when the shelters close, have nowhere to go because their homes are destroyed. These are not homeless people. They're homeless now."

Josh Lockwood, the Red Cross' regional chief executive, said 10 trucks began arriving to Staten Island on Thursday morning and a kitchen was set up to distribute meals. Lockwood defended the agency, saying relief workers were stretched thin.

"We're talking about a disaster where we've had shelters set up from Virginia to Indiana to the state Maine, so there's just this tremendous response," he said. "So I would say no one organization is going to be able to address the needs of all these folks by themselves."

In Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, Mary Wilson, 75, was buying water from a convenience store that was open but had no power. She said she had been without running water or electricity for three days, and lived on the 19th floor.

She walked downstairs Thursday for the first time because she ran out of bottled water and felt she was going to faint. She said she met people on the stairs who helped her down.

"I did a lot of praying: 'Help me to get to the main floor.' Now I've got to pray to get to the top," she said. "I said, 'I'll go down today or they'll find me dead.'"

RELATED ON SKYE: Photos - Before and After Superstorm Sandy

 

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Forecasters: New Storm May Hit U.S. East Coast

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(NOAA)

WASHINGTON (AP) - Forecasters say another messy - and wintry - storm may cause post-Election Day problems for an already weather weary U.S. East Coast.

But meteorologists add that it's six days out, so that's rather early to get too worried. The forecast could change before it hits late next week.

The National Weather Service's forecast center that watches winter storms put out a long-range notice Thursday, saying bluntly that a nor'easter is possible for the mid-Atlantic and New England.

Forecaster Bruce Sullivan says it wouldn't be as bad as Superstorm Sandy and isn't tropical. But it could include snow in interior New England and New York, beach erosion and high winds for areas hit by Sandy, and moderate or heavier rainfall.

RELATED ON SKYE: Photos - Before and After Superstorm Sandy

 

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Search Ends for Captain of Ship That Sank in Sandy

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This photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard shows the HMS Bounty, a 180-foot sailboat, submerged in the Atlantic Ocean during Hurricane Sandy approximately 90 miles southeast of Hatteras, N.C., Monday, Oct. 29. (AP)

ELIZABETH CITY, North Carolina (AP) - The U.S. Coast Guard halted its search Thursday for the captain of a tall ship that sank off the North Carolina coast during Hurricane Sandy after more than three days of around-the-clock effort.

The Coast Guard for 90 hours searched for 63-year-old Robin Walbridge of St. Petersburg, Florida, using ships, helicopters, and large planes before suspending its efforts, said Lt. Michael Patterson.

"Suspending a search and rescue case is one of the hardest decisions we have to make," said Capt. Doug Cameron, the chief of incident response for the Coast Guard 5th District.

The HMS Bounty was originally built for the 1962 film "Mutiny on the Bounty" starring Marlon Brando, and it was featured in several other films over the years, including one of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies.

Walbridge was captain of the three-masted tall ship, which sank before dawn Monday in hurricane-churned waters about 90 miles (145 kilometers) off Cape Hatteras. The crew abandoned ship in two life rafts, and the Coast Guard rescued 14 crew members. Claudene Christian, 42, was among those rescued, but she died.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the Walbridge and Christian families," Cameron said.

The search persisted for days despite rough seas in hopes the healthy, expert seaman could stay alive in his survival suit in the relatively warm waters near the site of the shipwreck, the Coast Guard said. The water temperature was 79 degrees Fahrenheit (26.11 degrees Celsius) Thursday, but seas rocked waves of 4 feet (1.2 meters) and the winds were 30 mph (48 kph).

The ship's connection to its namesake went back to the original Bounty, whose crew famously took over the ship from its commander, Lt. William Bligh, in April 1789. The mutiny was led by Fletcher Christian, and Claudene Christian said she was his great-great-great-great-great granddaughter.

Walbridge believed he could navigate the ship around Hurricane Sandy when the Bounty set sail last week from Connecticut. After two days in rough seas, he realized his journey would be far more difficult.

"I think we are going to be into this for several days," Walbridge said in a message posted Sunday on the vessel's Facebook site, which reads like a ship's log of its activities. "We are just going to keep trying to go fast."

By Monday morning, the vessel had started taking on water, its engines failed and the crew had to abandon ship as it went down in 18-foot (5-meter) waves. By the time the first rescue helicopter arrived, all that was visible of the ship was a strobe light atop the vessel's submerged masts. The roiling Atlantic Ocean had claimed the rest.

RELATED ON SKYE: Photos - Before and After Superstorm Sandy

 

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2 NYC Boys Found Dead, Swept Away by Storm Waters

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Glenda Moore, and her husband, Damian Moore, react as they approach the scene where at least one of their childrens' bodies were discovered in Staten Island, New York, Thursday, Nov. 1. (AP)

NEW YORK (AP) - Two young brothers swept from the arms of their mother by the violent sea at the height of Superstorm Sandy were found dead in a marsh Thursday, a tragic exclamation mark on an epic storm.

The boys, 2-year-old Brandon and 4-year-old Connor Moore, were sucked into the swirling floodwaters as their mother, Glenda Moore, tried to escape her SUV after it stalled Monday in the deluge on Staten Island, one of the areas hardest hit by the storm that has claimed 90 lives.

"Terrible, absolutely terrible," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said as he announced that the bodies had been discovered on the third day of a search that included police divers and sniffer dogs.

"It just compounds all the tragic aspects of this horrific event."

Police said the 29-year-old mother had driven from her flooded home toward her sister's house in Brooklyn when the car became stuck about 6:10 p.m. Monday, forcing her to confront the rising water and the relentless cadence of pounding waves as she clung to her boys' arms.

"As the water swelled she lost her grip of her children and they were swept away," police said in a release.

Kelly said the mother "was totally, completely distraught. She started looking for them herself, asking people to help her look."

After the boys disappeared, police said, Moore fled and in a panic climbed fences and went door-to-door looking in vain for help in a neighborhood that was presumably largely abandoned in the face of the storm.

Police said she flagged down an emergency vehicle about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday and authorities began their search. Police said she told them she tried to find help and eventually gave up, spending the night trying to shield herself from the storm on the front porch of an empty home.

The search continued in the days that followed, with numerous emergency personnel joining the march through Staten Island marshland. The bodies were found about 100 feet from each other at the end of a narrow dead end street.

Damian Moore, the boys' father, reached on his cell phone, said he had no comment about the tragedy.

The boys were among 19 storm victims found on Staten Island, out of nearly 40 who died in New York City's five boroughs. Those identified Thursday included a couple who apparently drove away from their home as the storm struck.

The 89-year-old man and 66-year-old woman were found lying next to a car in a vacant lot. Police believe they drowned after climbing out to escape rising water.

Authorities stressed that the death toll was preliminary, and that the total could change if the medical examiner determines any deaths were not storm-related.

 

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Springsteen Pays Tribute to Storm-Damaged N.J. Coast

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Bruce Springsteen performing at Fenway Park in Boston on Aug. 14, 2012. (AP)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) - New Jersey rocker Bruce Springsteen says his home state will rebound from the devastation wrought by Superstorm Sandy.

During a stop at the Jordan Center on the Penn State campus Thursday, Springsteen also thanked New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for "doing a fine job" of taking care of citizens. He lauded police, firefighters and other first responders.

Springsteen then launched into an extended, heart-wrenching rendition of his song "My City of Ruins."

His legion of dedicated fans roared back with reverent approval, most of them acquiescing to Springsteen when he signaled for quiet as the lights dimmed at one point, as if requesting a moment of silence.

His shirt soaked with sweat just a half-hour into the show, Springsteen said he and his E Street Band feel a strong connection to New Jersey wherever they are.

"It's so hard to see those businesses ... be washed away by the storm last week," Springsteen said.

Several fans on the floor among a crowd of at least 12,500 held up signs referencing the damage along the Jersey shore.

"Greetings from Belmar, N.J. Sandy left my city in ruins," read one sign.

"Jersey strong," read another sign.

Springsteen also made several other references to the storm during the show. He said he hoped Asbury Park, N.J. - the city where he cut his musical teeth in the early days - would recover from Sandy's wake much quicker than the 25 years it took for the coastal town to rally from earlier hard times.

During a line from the second song of the night, "Wrecking Ball," Springsteen paused for at least a minute following the line "Now my home is on the Jersey shore."

At another point he held up a sign handed to him by a fan. "Never forget, 4th of July, Asbury Park."

"There you go," Springsteen told the crowd, "we can't let a hurricane get rid of that one."

On Wednesday, Springsteen and the E Street Band performed in the upstate New York town of Rochester, a concert that had been postponed from Tuesday because of travel difficulties caused by the storm.

"We're a band you can't separate from the Jersey shore," Springsteen said during that show.

As the band played "My City of Ruins," Springsteen also dedicated the song to Asbury Park, which along with other communities was hit hard by flooding, power outages and damage.

"There's just been terrible disruption all along the coast we grew up on," said Springsteen as he paced back and forth across the stage.

Springsteen will join NBC's planned benefit concert Friday for victims of the storm.

RELATED ON SKYE: Photos - Before and After Superstorm Sandy

 

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Isolated NYC Borough Says Help is Slow After Sandy

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Brooke Clarkin tries to salvage some personal items from her mother's home in Staten Island on Thursday. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

NEW YORK (AP) - The mother grabbed her two boys and fled their home as it filled with water, hoping to outrun Superstorm Sandy.

But Glenda Moore and her SUV were no match for the epic storm. Moore's Ford Explorer stalled in the rising tide, and the rushing waters snatched 2-year-old Brandon and 4-year-old Connor from her arms as they tried to escape.

The youngsters' bodies were recovered from a marsh Thursday - the latest, most gut-wrenching blow in New York's Staten Island, an isolated city borough hard-hit by the storm and yet, residents say, largely forgotten by federal officials assessing damage of the monster storm that has killed more than 90 people in 10 states.

"Terrible, absolutely terrible," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said as he announced the boys' bodies had been found on the third day of a search that included police divers and sniffer dogs. "It just compounds all the tragic aspects of this horrific event."

The heartbreaking discovery came as residents and public officials complained that help has been frustratingly slow to arrive on stricken Staten Island, where 19 have been killed - nearly half the death toll of all of New York City.

Garbage is piling up, a stench hangs in the air and mud-caked mattresses and couches line the streets. Residents are sifting through the remains of their homes, searching for anything that can be salvaged.

"We have hundreds of people in shelters," said James Molinaro, the borough's president. "Many of them, when the shelters close, have nowhere to go because their homes are destroyed. These are not homeless people. They're homeless now."

Molinaro complained the American Red Cross "is nowhere to be found" - and some residents questioned what they called the lack of a response by government disaster relief agencies.

A relief fund is being created just for storm survivors on Staten Island, Molinaro and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said Friday. And Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Federal Emergency Management Agency Deputy Administrator Richard Serino planned to tour the island.

Four days after Sandy lashed the East Coast with high winds and a huge storm surge, frustration mounted across New York City and well beyond as millions of people remained without power and motorists lined up for hours at gas stations in New Jersey and New York.

In the city's Queens borough, a man was accused of pulling a gun Thursday on a motorist who complained when he cut in line at a gas station; no one was injured. And as the Friday morning commute began, long lines at gas stations in suburban Westchester County snaked along expressway breakdown lanes and exit ramps.

There were hopeful signs, though, that life would soon begin to return to something approaching normal.

Consolidated Edison, the power company serving New York, said electricity should be restored by Saturday to customers in Manhattan and to homes and offices served by underground power lines in Brooklyn. More subway and rail lines were expected to open Friday, including Amtrak' New York to Boston route on the Northeast Corridor.

But the prospect of better times ahead did little to mollify residents who spent another day and night in the dark.

"It's too much. You're in your house. You're freezing," said Geraldine Giordano, 82, a lifelong resident of the West Village. Near her home, city employees had set up a sink where residents could get fresh water, if they needed it. There were few takers. "Nobody wants to drink that water," Giordano said.

"Everybody's tired of it already," added Rosemarie Zurlo, a makeup artist who once worked on Woody Allen movies. She said she planned to temporarily abandon her powerless, unheated apartment in the West Village to stay with her sister in Brooklyn. "I'm leaving because I'm freezing. My apartment is ice cold."

There was increasing concern about the outage's impact on elderly residents. Community groups have been going door-to-door on the upper floors of darkened Manhattan apartment buildings, and city workers and volunteer in hard-hit Newark, N.J., delivered meals to seniors and others stuck in their buildings.

"It's been mostly older folks who aren't able to get out," said Monique George of Manhattan-based Community Voices Heard. "In some cases, they hadn't talked to folks in a few days. They haven't even seen anybody because the neighbors evacuated. They're actually happy that folks are checking, happy to see another person. To not see someone for a few days, in this city, it's kind of weird."

Along the devastated Jersey Shore and New York's beachfront communities, a lack of electricity was the least of anyone's worries.

Residents were allowed back in their neighborhoods Thursday for the first time since Sandy made landfall Monday night. Some were relieved to find only minor damage, but many others were wiped out. "A lot of tears are being shed today," said Dennis Cucci, whose home near the ocean in Point Pleasant Beach sustained heavy damage. "It's absolutely mind-boggling."

After touring a flood-ravaged area of northeastern New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie said it was time to act, not mourn.

"We're in the 'triage and attack phase' of the storm, so we can restore power, reopen schools, get public transportation back online and allow people to return to their homes if they've been displaced," he said.

In Staten Island, police recounted Glenda Moore's fruitless struggle to save her children.

Kelly said the 39-year-old mother "was totally, completely distraught" after she lost her grip on her sons shortly after 6 p.m. Monday. In a panic, she climbed fences and went door-to-door looking in vain for help in a neighborhood that was presumably largely abandoned in the face of the storm.

She eventually gave up, spending the night trying to shield herself from the storm on the front porch of an empty home.

RELATED ON SKYE: Photos - Before and After Superstorm Sandy

 

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Christie Pushes for Faster Storm Recovery in N.J.

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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie tries to comfort Moonachie, N.J. residents whose homes were damaged by Superstorm Sandy on Thursday. (AP Photo/The Record of Bergen County, Kevin R. Wexler, Pool)

MOONACHIE, N.J. (AP) - In a whirlwind of post-storm decisions that might ruffle some feathers, Gov. Chris Christie announced a string of orders and plans intended to speed New Jersey's recovery from Superstorm Sandy, including telling teachers to work on their days off and utilities to speed up the job of power restoration.

He secured loaned rail cars to use in place of some of the New Jersey Transit cars that were flooded, ordered natural gas shut off in devastated places and announced that military trucks would be used as makeshift polling places in places where regular voting spots are without power.

"We're in the triage and attack phase of the storm, so we can restore power, reopen schools, get public transportation back online and allow people to return to their homes if they've been displaced," he said Thursday in Moonachie.

He told utility companies they have to work harder to turn lights back on in the 1.7 million homes and businesses in the state that remain without power after Superstorm Sandy hit Monday, and told teachers to report to work on days they are entitled to have off.

The Republican governor, known far and wide for his forcefulness, has gotten mostly praise so far for his handling on the storm. President Barack Obama complimented him, Democratic New Jersey politicians have appeared by his side, constituents have hugged him and skeptical storm victims have credit to the state's efforts.

"I'm from Florida, so we're used to it," said Konnie Jones, 47, who was holed in a shelter in Pleasantville after her apartment in Atlantic City was evacuated. "I'll admit they did a good job, a really good, fine job so far."

But some of his new actions will likely ruffle feathers.

The New Jersey Education Association, the state's largest teachers union and a group that has frequently clashed with the governor, announced Thursday that it was canceling its annual convention scheduled for next week in Atlantic City because of the storm.

The convention means an extra break in the school calendar. Some districts have four-day weekends to accommodate the convention, and others use it to scratch an entire week of classes by holding teacher in-service sessions on some other days that week. The result is a time that some people call "New Jersey Week" for Disney World because so many New Jersey families head to Florida then.

Christie said that because the storm forced unscheduled days off for schools, teachers should agree to return to the classroom on Nov. 8 and 9, the days the convention would have been held. He said he could invoke emergency powers to force them to teach on those days if they didn't do it on their own.

It's not clear what school districts will want to do, but union officials say Christie's idea doesn't work because so many students and parents have plans to be away.

The governor also summoned the leaders of the state's three major electric utilities and said he told them that they need to work faster to turn back on power. The companies had restored service to about 1 million residential and business customers from the 2.7 million that were out of power at the peak Tuesday.

"I made it clear to them that whatever playbooks they had were to be thrown out because we've never faced anything like this before," he said.

He said he was demanding that they tell him exactly how many more workers and how much more equipment they would need.

His administration arranged to bring both from 12 other states - even flying them in on military jets, in some cases. The federal government was setting up temporary housing for the workers on Fort Monmouth.

Before the speedup was announced, the utility with the most outages, JCP&L, was expecting it would take nearly two weeks to restore customers in some of the hardest-hit areas.

The governor also ordered natural gas service shut off from Mantoloking to Island Beach State Park, a stretch of an Ocean County barrier island where several fires have burned, fueled by leaking gas. He said the order will mean that New Jersey Natural Gas will have to pay to rebuild the natural gas system in the region.

Since Monday's storm hit, Christie has scoffed at questions about how Election Day will work on Tuesday, saying he had other priorities to deal with first.

But on Thursday, his administration announced that it was extending the application to apply for mail-in ballots until Friday and was arranging for military trucks to be set up as polls in spots where the regular polls were without power or destroyed.

It's unclear how many of the state's 3,000 polling places will be affected. The change means that some voters will be using paper ballots instead of electronic ones - and that's likely to extend the time it takes to tally results.

Christie also said Thursday that although Atlantic City's 12 casinos all have electricity, they will not be allowed to reopen until drinking water in the city is found to be safe and power can be restored to the rest of the city.

The governor is also trying to bring back more of the mass-transit system that is so important to the state, particularly residents who work in New York City. He said the federal government would loan New Jersey passenger cars.

About one-fourth of NJ Transit's cars were in flooded rail yards and are not ready to roll.

The first NJ Transit train to New York's Penn Station since before the storm was set to roll in Monday morning, but a power failure delayed the return of three other train lines, agency spokesman John Durso Jr. said.

RELATED ON SKYE: Photos - Before and After Superstorm Sandy

 

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Sandy Shatters Delicate New Jersey Barrier Islands

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Sand washed inland by superstorm Sandy is piled on the streets of Spray beach, N.J. on Thursday. (AP Photo/Robert Ray)

NEW YORK (AP) - Superstorm Sandy left New Jersey's delicate barrier islands a hazardous wasteland of eroded shoreline, ruined beachfront homes, flooded streets and damaged utilities and a forecasting firm estimated the total U.S. damage from the storm could run as high as $50 billion.

New York City was slowly coming back to life, starting with the partial reopening Thursday of vital subway, three days after the storm hit. However, neighboring New Jersey was stunned by coastal devastation and the news that thousands of people in one city were still stranded by increasingly fetid flood waters.

The forecasting firm Eqecat estimated the total U.S. damage at $50 billion, making it the second-costliest storm in the country's history after Hurricane Katrina. The estimate includes property damage and lost business.

The total cost in human lives reached more than 90 fatalities in 10 states.

New Jersey's once-pristine Atlantic coastline famous for Bruce Springsteen and the TV show "Jersey Shore" was shattered. Some residents finally got a look at what was left of their homes: Sandy wrecked houses, businesses and boardwalks.

And warnings rose again about global warming and the prospect of more such severe weather to come.

"The next 50 to 100 years are going to be very different than what we've seen in the past 50 years," said S. Jeffress Williams, a scientist emeritus at the U.S. Geological Survey's Woods Hole Science Center in Massachusetts. The sea level is rising fast, and destructive storms are occurring more frequently, said Williams, who expects things to get even worse.

Across the Hudson River from New York City, the floodwaters were slowly receding in the city of Hoboken, where an estimated 20,000 people had remained in their homes. The National Guard was helping with evacuations, but residents were warned not to walk around in water that was tainted with sewage and chemicals from the heavily industrial region.

New Jersey residents across the state were urged to conserve water. At least 1.7 million customers remained without electricity there, and fights broke out as people waited in long lines for gas.

In New York, the decision to reopen undamaged parts of the United States' largest transit system came as more than 4.6 million homes and businesses were without power - down from a peak of 8.5 million.

New Yorkers streamed into the city as service began to resume on commuter trains and subways. The three major airports resumed at least limited service, and the New York Stock Exchange was open again. Amtrak's Northeast Corridor - the busiest train line in the country - was to take commuters along the heavily populated East Coast again starting Friday.

But hundreds of people lined up for buses, traffic jammed for miles (kilometers) and long gas lines formed. And the latest deaths reported included two young boys who disappeared Monday night when waves of water crashed into an SUV.

Hundreds of thousands in New York City alone were still without power, especially in downtown Manhattan, which remained in the dark roughly south of the Empire State Building after floodwaters had knocked out electricity. Con Edison said it was on track to restore power by Saturday.

Concerns rose over the elderly and poor all but trapped on upper floors of housing complexes in the powerless area and facing pitch-black hallways, elevators and dwindling food. New York's governor ordered deliveries of food and drinking water to help them. New York dipped to about 40 degrees (4.44 degrees Celsius) Wednesday night.

"Our problem is making sure they know that food is available," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Thursday, as officials expressed concern about people having to haul water from fire hydrants up darkened flights of stairs.

In Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, Mary Wilson, 75, walked downstairs from her 19th floor apartment for the first time Thursday because she ran out of bottled water and felt she was going to faint. She said she met people on the stairs who helped her down.

"I did a lot of praying: 'Help me to get to the main floor.' Now I've got to pray to get to the top," she said, buying water from a convenience store. "I said, 'I'll go down today or they'll find me dead.'"

The superstorm's effects, though much weakened, continued Thursday. Snow drifts as high as 5 feet (1.5 meters) piled up in West Virginia, where the former hurricane merged with two winter weather systems as it went inland.

Across the region, people stricken by the storm pulled together, in some cases providing comfort to those left homeless, in others offering hot showers and electrical outlets for charging mobile phones to those without power.

Bloomberg also ordered residents to share cars. Television footage Thursday showed heavy traffic crawling into Manhattan as police turned away cars that carried fewer than three people - a rule meant to ease the congestion that paralyzed the city earlier in the week.

But frustration mounted and tempers flared in gas lines.

At a station near Brooklyn's Coney Island, almost 100 cars lined up, and people shouted and honked, and a station employee said he had been spit on and had coffee thrown at him.

At a Brooklyn arena, more than 1,000 people packed the sidewalk waiting for buses to Manhattan. When a bus pulled up, passengers rushed the door. A transit worker banged on a bus window, yelled at people inside, and then yelled at people in the line.

After suffering the worst disaster in its 108-year-old history, the subways were rolling again - at least some of them. More than a dozen of the lines would offer some service, but none below Manhattan's 34th Street.

But most of New Jersey's mass transit systems remained shut, leaving hundreds of thousands of commuters stuck on clogged highways and in long lines at gas stations. Atlantic City's casinos remained closed.

RELATED ON SKYE: Photos - Before and After Superstorm Sandy

 

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Gas Stations Scramble in Sandy's Aftermath

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People wait in line to fill containers with gas at a Shell gasoline filling station in Keyport, N.J. on Thursday. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

NEW YORK (AP) - There's plenty of gasoline in the Northeast - just not at gas stations.

In parts of New York and New Jersey, drivers lined up Thursday for hours at gas stations that were struggling to stay supplied. The power outages and flooding caused by Superstorm Sandy have forced many gas stations to close and disrupted the flow of fuel from refineries to those stations that are open.

At the same time, millions of gallons of gasoline are sitting at the ready in storage tanks, pipelines and tankers that can't unload their cargoes.

"It's like a stopped up drain," said Tom Kloza, Chief Oil Analyst at the Oil Price Information Service.

For people staying home or trying to restart a business, the scene wasn't much brighter: Millions were in the dark and many will remain so for days. As of Thursday, 4.5 million homes were without power, down from a peak of 8.5 million. The New Jersey utility Public Service Electric & Gas said it will restore power to most people in 7 to 10 days. Consolidated Edison, which serves New York City and Westchester County, said most customers will have power by Nov. 11, but some might have to wait an additional week or longer.

Superstorm Sandy found a host of ways to cripple the region's energy infrastructure. Its winds knocked down power lines and its floods swamped electrical substations that send power to entire neighborhoods. It also mangled ports that accept fuel tankers and flooded underground equipment that sends fuel through pipelines. Without power, fuel terminals can't pump gasoline onto tanker trucks, and gas stations can't pump fuel into customers' cars.

The Energy Department reported Thursday that 13 of the region's 33 fuel terminals were closed. Sections of two major pipelines that serve the area - the Colonial Pipeline and the Buckeye Pipeline - were also closed.

Thousands of gas stations in New Jersey and Long Island were closed because of a lack of power. AAA estimates that 60 percent of the stations in New Jersey are shut along with up to 70 percent of the stations in Long Island.

Thursday morning the traffic to a Hess station on 9th Avenue in New York City filled two lanes of the avenue for two city blocks. Four police officers were directing the slow parade of cars into the station.

A few blocks away, a Mobil station sat empty behind orange barricades, with a sign explaining it was out of gas.

Taxi and car service drivers were running dry - and giving up, even though demand for rides was high because of the crippled public transit system. Northside Car Service in Williamsburg, Brooklyn has 250 drivers available on a typical Thursday evening. Today they had just 20. "The gas lines are too long," said Thomas Miranda, an operator at Northside.

Betty Bethea, 59, waited nearly three hours to get to the front of the line at a Gulf station in Newark, but she brought reinforcements: Her kids were there with gas cans, and her husband was behind her in his truck.

Bethea had tried to drive to her job at a northern New Jersey Kohl's store on Thursday morning, only to find her low-fuel light on. She and her husband crisscrossed the region in search of gas and were shooed away by police at every closed station she encountered.

"It is crazy out here - people scrambling everywhere, cutting in front of people. I have never seen New Jersey like this," Bethea said.

But relief appeared to be on the way, even as the lines grew Thursday. The Environmental Protection Agency lifted requirements for low-smog gasoline, allowing deliveries of gasoline from other regions. Tanker trucks sped north from terminals in Baltimore and other points south with fuel.

A big delivery of fuel was on its way south to Boston from a Canadian refinery. Ports and terminals remained open in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania, and portions of the Colonial and Buckeye pipelines are expected to re-open on Friday. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners expects to open its three terminals in New Jersey and New York over the next two days after bringing in backup generators.

And the U.S. Coast Guard opened the Port of New York and New Jersey to tankers Thursday.

Logistical problems will remain, though, for days. Barges can now visit terminals up the Hudson River and into Long Island Sound, but many of the major fuel hubs and terminals near the New York and New Jersey ports still can't offload fuel. They need to get electricity back, pump water out of flooded areas, and inspect equipment before starting operations again.

And gas stations won't be able to open up until they have power, either.

That means tanker trucks will have to travel further to deliver fuel to stations, and customers will have to drive further to find open stations.

It does not mean, however, that the region will run out of gasoline. OPIS's Kloza suspects the long lines are partly a result of panic-buying.

"This is not the Arab Oil Embargo again," he said. "There are moments when hysteria is warranted, and moments it's not. Right now, it's not."

Prices shouldn't spike like they did in the 1970s - or even as they did before Hurricane Isaac slammed the Gulf Coast this summer. There may be a short-term increase, but gas prices should resume what has been a 6-week slide. Gasoline demand is very low at this time of year, and there's enough fuel to go around - as soon as it can get around.

The national average gasoline price fell a penny to $3.51 per gallon Thursday, according to AAA, OPIS and Wright Express. Six weeks ago the price was $3.87.

Patrick DeHaan of GasBuddy.com, which collects gasoline prices from thousands of drivers, said prices weren't spiking in New York and New Jersey on Thursday. It was just a matter of finding stations that were open and had fuel.

RELATED ON SKYE: Photos - Before and After Superstorm Sandy

 

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Verizon Says Sandy Effects Could be 'Significant'

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(AP Photo)

NEW YORK (AP) - Verizon says the effects of Superstorm Sandy on its fourth-quarter earnings could be "significant."

Verizon Communications Inc., whose downtown Manhattan facilities were flooded and are still without power, said Friday it is working to restore communications services to customers affected by the storm.

The New York-based company says this could take some time.

Sandy knocked some cell towers out earlier in the week but by Wednesday they were slowly coming back to life. But ongoing power outages mean many are still disabled.

Verizon says it is not possible to estimate the precise impact of the storm on its fourth-quarter results though it could be significant.

Its shares dropped 54 cents to $44.60 in premarket trading.

RELATED ON SKYE: Photos - Before and After Superstorm Sandy

 

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Mayor Bloomberg Says NYC Marathon Canceled

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg talks to traders before ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, Oct. 31. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

NEW YORK (AP) - The New York City Marathon was canceled Friday by Mayor Michael Bloomberg after mounting criticism that this was not the time for a race while the region is still recovering from Superstorm Sandy.

With people in storm-ravaged areas still shivering without electricity and the death toll in New York City at more than 40, many New Yorkers recoiled at the prospect of police officers being assigned to protect a marathon on Sunday.

An estimated 40,000 runners from around the world had been expected to take part in the 26.2-mile event. The race had been scheduled to start in Staten Island, one of the hardest-hit areas by this week's storm.

"We would not want a cloud to hang over the race or its participants, and so we have decided to cancel it," the mayor said in a statement. "We cannot allow a controversy over an athletic event - even one as meaningful as this - to distract attention away from all the critically important work that is being done to recover from the storm and get our city back on track."

Bloomberg called the marathon an "integral part of New York City's life for 40 years" and "an event tens of thousands of New Yorkers participate in and millions more watch."

He still insisted that holding the race would not require diverting resources from the recovery effort, but understood the level of friction.

"It is clear it that it has become the source of controversy and division," Bloomberg said. "The marathon has always brought our city together and inspired us with stories of courage and determination.

RELATED ON SKYE: Before and After Superstorm Sandy

 

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Photos: Twitter Conveys Struggles After Sandy

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Watch: Singer Aimee Mann Debuts 'Sandy' Song

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[Editor's note: The song starts in the video at :56.]

TARRYTOWN, N.Y. (AP) - Singer Aimee Mann has a new song born of her experience riding out this week's superstorm in a Brooklyn hotel.

Called "Sandy" and sung to the tune of Barry Manilow's "Mandy," the humorous song cheered a storm-weary concert audience in New York's Westchester County on Thursday night. Many of the attendees found a warm room almost as inviting as the music.

She sang: "Oh Sandy, now we hate you as much as Osama, after Con Ed exploded. Oh Sandy, and Chris Christie is calling Obama, glad I already voted."

New Jersey's Republican Gov. Chris Christie praised President Barack Obama and toured storm damage with him earlier this week.

Mann, a California resident, was in the New York area for a week's worth of shows. Two had to be rescheduled because of the storm.

RELATED ON SKYE: Before and After Superstorm Sandy

 

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Fuel Shortage Means Gridlock in Lines for Gasoline

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People cue up at the Shell station on Route 35 in Hazlet, N.J. for gasoline, Thursday, Nov. 1. (AP Photo/Peter Hermann, III)

NEW YORK (AP) - When it came to fuel supplies and patience, the New York metro area was running close to empty Friday.

From storm-scarred New Jersey to parts of Connecticut, a widespread lack of gasoline or electricity to pump it brought grousing, gridlock and worse, compounding frustrations as millions of Americans struggled to return to normal days after Superstorm Sandy. A man pulled a gun in one gas-line fracas that led to an arrest.

Lines of cars, and in many places queues of people on foot carrying bright red jerry cans for generators, waited for hours for the precious fuel. And those were the lucky ones. Other customers gave up after finding only closed stations or dry pumps marked with yellow tape or "No Gas" signs.

"EMPTY!" declared the red-type headline dominating the New York Daily News' front page.

"I drove around last night and couldn't find anything," said a relieved Kwabena Sintim-Misa as he finally prepared to fill up Friday morning in Fort Lee, N.J., near the George Washington Bridge, where the wait in line lasted three hours.

Arlend Pierre-Louis of Elmont, on Long Island, said he awoke at 4:30 a.m. to try to get gas.

When he finally found some - "the one working pump in Elmont" - the line was so long he gave up and returned to his home, which still has no light or hot water.

At a Hess gas station in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, the 10-block line caused confusion among passing drivers.

"There's been a little screaming, a little yelling. And I saw one guy banging on the hood of a car," said Vince Levine, who got in line in his van at 5 a.m. and was still waiting at 8 a.m. "But mostly it's been OK."

While the snaking lines and frayed nerves revived memories for some of the crippling Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, a cabdriver stuck in a 17-block line at a Manhattan station remained philosophical.

"I don't blame anybody," said Harum Prince. "God, he knows why he brought this storm."

Many tried to heed Mayor Michael Bloomberg's admonition to "have some patience" as the stricken metro area recovers from the unprecedented storm that upended daily life with power outages, food shortages and other frustrations besides lack of fuel.

But tempers boiled over in some places.

Arguments in gas station queues in New York's Queens borough and in Pelham led to arrests, authorities said. In the first case, a man pulled a gun, and in the second police confiscated a box cutter. No one was hurt.

Power outages that lingered across the region prevented some gas stations that had fuel from being able to pump it, officials said. But fuel supplies themselves were badly disrupted by the storm.

Sandy damaged ports that accept fuel tankers and flooded underground equipment that sends fuel through pipelines. Without power, fuel terminals can't pump gasoline onto tanker trucks, and gas stations can't pump fuel into customers' cars.

The Port of New York and New Jersey was slowly starting to accept tankers, but some cargo was being diverted to the Port of Virginia. Federal requirements for low-smog gasoline have been lifted, and fuel trucks are on their way to the area.

Officials said they were working to speed the flow of fuel.

On Friday, the Obama administration ordered the purchase of up to 12 million gallons of unleaded fuel and up to 10 million gallons of diesel fuel for distribution in areas affected by the storm to supplement private-sector efforts. It will be transported by tanker trucks to New York, New Jersey and other damaged communities.

In addition, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano temporarily waived a maritime rule to allow foreign oil tankers coming from the Gulf of Mexico to enter Northeastern ports. The action, she said, would "remove a potential obstacle to bringing additional fuel to the storm-damaged region."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, meanwhile, signed an executive order waiving the state's requirement that fuel tankers register and pay a tax before unloading.

Tankers, he said Friday, are now making "great progress" delivering fuel to distribution centers.

"No reason to panic," the governor urged.

Bloomberg told reporters Friday that the gas-supply issues "are starting to be alleviated" through the temporary regulatory fixes and other developments. He noted a plan is in place to ensure that police, fire and other emergency vehicles have the fuel they need. Buses, including school buses, are also a priority.

"But the bottom line is that the gasoline system is getting back on its feet," he said.

Delays due to storms, the mayor added, "have happened before. They spring up very quickly, and they go away very quickly. We basically have a supply system - as it comes in we use it. If it stops coming in, we're in trouble."

But keeping perspective could be a challenge as the gas lines lengthened.

Many service centers along the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike were so full that cars trying to pass at highway speeds sometimes had to swerve to avoid them.

One New Jersey town, Belleville, passed an emergency ordinance that rations gas: Effective Monday, people with odd numbered license plates (or driver's licenses for individuals filling gas containers) will only be allowed to get gas on odd-numbered days; even-numbered plates on even-numbered days.

In Connecticut, traffic jams created by New Yorkers exiting from Interstate 95 to take advantage of the stations that were open were "making it difficult for everybody," said Greenwich police Lt. Kraig Gray.

Police monitored lines in many places, including a Hess station in Fort Lee, N.J., where an officer was seen ordering a man out of line after sneaking in from a side street.

Among those waiting there, Kenneth Kelly of Englewood Cliffs took it all in stride.

"It ain't that bad. I could be in Queens," he said, referring to the confrontations there. "I've seen a lot of bad in my life, people getting sick and things like that. This is what I call an inconvenience. Now, losing something like a house, that would be bad."

PHOTOS ON SKYE: Before and After Superstorm Sandy

 

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Superstorm Was Cruel to Elderly Who Refused to Evacuate

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Sheila and Dominic Traina hug Friday in front of the remains of their Staten Island, N.Y., home, destroyed by Superstorm Sandy. AP Photo.

NEW YORK (AP) - Even with her Coney Island apartment squarely in the path of Superstorm Sandy, Loraine Gore was staying put. At age 90, she said, she had her reasons.

"I'm tired," she told a friend who urged her to evacuate. "I don't want to go."

After floodwaters subsided, Gore's body was found face-down in her home - one of nearly a dozen New Yorkers over the age of 65 who perished in the storm.

While Sandy claimed victims as young as toddlers, it was crueler to the city's elderly.

Some were vulnerable because of poor health. The power failure cut off the oxygen supply for an ailing 75-year woman living in Manhattan's East Village. Her grandson rushed to a nearby hospital to get a manual tank, but by the time he returned, she had died from an apparent heart attack.

Others died fleeing the storm. On Wednesday, police discovered the bodies of an 89-year-old man and his 66-year-old wife next to their car in a vacant lot on Staten Island. Police believe the couple died after their car became submerged in water.

RELATED ON SKYE: Isolated NYC Borough Says Help Is Slow After Sandy

Most drowned alone in bedrooms, living rooms and basements that flooded.

One 84-year-old victim in Queens was confined to a wheelchair, meaning she probably couldn't have fled the rising water. But other older victims weren't homebound. They chose to stay and risk their lives, perhaps too stubborn or too weary to do otherwise.

Another was 82-year-old Jimmy Rossi, known as "Uncle Jimmy" because so many people in his tight-knit Staten Island community are related. Rossi lived in a beach bungalow and spent much of his time tending to his aging bulldog, Shorty.

As the water began to rise Monday night, neighbors assumed Rossi had heeded calls to head for higher ground. A niece heard through a friend that he was going to his son's house. He told his son he was going to a friend's.

But when the storm eased Tuesday, it became increasingly clear Rossi had done neither.

Rossi's son, Joe, his nephew and some neighbors used a kayak to break the windows of his submerged home in a frantic, failed search. On Wednesday, his body was found in the marsh behind his house, where Shorty had survived.

Neighbor Richard Quinn, a retired firefighter, speculated that Rossi had left the house to escape the rising water but got swept up in it.

"Like the rest of us, he probably figured it wasn't going to be as bad as it was," said Quinn, who has lived across the street for 50 years. "It was like a tsunami coming."

Gore's final hours were spent in the apartment where she had lived alone since her husband, a former transit worker, died more than a decade ago. She was known as a neighborhood pioneer - one of the first to live at the water's edge in a complex of 22 two-story townhouses.

Longtime friend Celina Grant recalled Gore as "a pleasant, humble person" who was a "very, very independent woman."

She "loved gardening and loved God," Grant said.

RELATED ON SKYE: 2 NYC Boys Found Dead, Swept Away by Storm Waters

In recent years, Gore had the help of a home health care aide after she developed difficulty walking. She told a neighbor she had stopped using the second floor.

On Monday, a friend tried to coax Gore out of her home, but she refused. Bayside waters later rose, flooding the first floors of all the apartments with 4 feet of water.

The next day, with no sign of Gore, a man used a screwdriver to pry open her door.

A moment later, he came back out, shouting: "She's dead! Call 911!" said neighbor Jenny Brown.

Brown ventured inside, finding Gore face-down on the floor, her arms spread out, surrounded by overturned furniture and dirt left behind by the receding waters.

"It was a mess like all of our apartments," she said. "Maybe she didn't feel good. Maybe she slept there."

The neighbors sought comfort in fond memories of Gore. Some recalled that her favorite flowers were carnations.

Gore liked "that they last so long," Grant said.

She paused for a few seconds before adding: "Like her."

PHOTOS ON SKYE: Before and After Superstorm Sandy

 

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Power Sputters Back to Region After the Storm

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New Yorkers Patrizia Wunderl, 27, and Aljoscha Farassat, 31, celebrate the restoration of power at their Lower East Side apartment Friday that had been offline for days following Superstorm Sandy. AP Photo.

NEW YORK (AP) - More New Yorkers awoke Saturday morning to power being restored for the first time since Superstorm Sandy pummeled the region, and those whose lights were back on celebrated it, but patience was wearing thin among those in the region who had been without power for most of the week.

From storm-scarred New Jersey to parts of Connecticut, a widespread lack of gasoline frustrated people who were just trying to get to work or pick up a load of groceries. Gas was to be rationed starting at noon Saturday in northern New Jersey, where drivers will be allowed to buy it only every other day, the governor declared.

The ongoing recovery also forced the cancellation of Sunday's New York City Marathon. Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed himself Friday and yielded to mounting criticism that this was no time to run the race, which starts on hard-hit Staten Island and wends through all five of the city's boroughs.

Bloomberg, who as late as Friday afternoon insisted the world's largest marathon should go on as scheduled Sunday, changed course shortly afterward amid intensifying opposition from the city comptroller, the Manhattan borough president and sanitation workers unhappy they had volunteered to help storm victims but were assigned to the race instead. The mayor said he would not want "a cloud to hang over the race or its participants."

RELATED ON SKYE: Superstorm Was Cruel to Elderly Who Refused to Evacuate

Many runners understood the rationale behind the decision. The death toll in the city stood at 41 and thousands of people were shivering without electricity, making many New Yorkers recoil at the idea of police officers protecting a foot race and evicting storm victims from hotels to make way for runners.

But the suddenness of it all forced runners to deal with an unexpected twist: what to do with no race.

Well over half of the 40,000 athletes were from out of town. Their entry fees were paid. Their airline tickets were purchased. Their friends and family had hotel rooms. And all week the race was a go, even after Sandy came ashore Monday.

"I understand why it cannot be held under the current circumstances," Meb Keflezighi, the 2009 men's champion and 2004 Olympic silver medalist, said in a statement. "Any inconveniences the cancellation causes me or the thousands of runners who trained and traveled for this race pales in comparison to the challenges faced by people in NYC and its vicinity."

ING, the financial company that is the title sponsor of the marathon, said it supported the decision to cancel. The firm's charitable giving arm has made a $500,000 contribution to help with relief and recovery efforts and is matching employee donations. Sponsor Poland Spring said it would donate the bottled water earmarked for the marathon to relief agencies, more than 200,000 bottles.

"When you have a significant amount of people voicing real pain and unhappiness over its running, you have to hear that. You have to take that into consideration," said Howard Wolfson, deputy mayor for government affairs and communications.

"Something that is such a celebration of the best of New York can't become divisive," he said. "That is not good for the city now as we try to complete our recovery effort, and it is not good for the marathon in the long run."

Each day has brought signs of recovery in the region. Fewer than 1 million customers in New York were without power Saturday, the lowest the number has been since the storm hit.

Aida Padilla, 75, was thrilled that the power at her large housing authority complex in New York City's Chelsea section had returned late Friday.

"Thank God," said Padilla, 75. "I screamed and I put the lights on. Everybody was screaming. It was better than New Year's."

RELATED ON SKYE: Isolated NYC Borough Says Help Is Slow After Sandy

Asked about whether she had heat, she replied, "hot and cold water and heat! Thank God, Jesus!"

NYU Langone Medical Center, one of two New York hospitals that had to evacuate patients at the height of the storm, said it would reopen Monday, though some doctors would see patients at alternate sites.

Seven backup generators at the hospital failed during the storm surge on Monday night, forcing the evacuation of 300 patients.

At Bellevue Hospital Center, some 700 patients had to be evacuated after the power failed. An official there said Thursday the hospital could be out of commission at least two more weeks.

In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie announced that he would make public a list of when utility companies intend to restore power to each community. Even if they end up working faster or slower, he said, residents will have a sense of when they will have power restored so they can plan their lives a bit better.

Commuter rail operator NJ Transit said it would have more service restored in time for the workweek to start Monday, most of Atlantic City's casinos reopened, and many school districts decided to hold classes next Thursday and Friday, days previously reserved for the New Jersey Education Association's annual conference, which has been canceled because of the storm.

PHOTOS ON SKYE: Before and After Superstorm Sandy

 

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Forecast: Chilly in the Northeast, Snow in the North

New Storm Could Cause More Jersey Flooding

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Flooded Mantoloking, N.J., as pictured Wednesday from the helicopter behind the chopper carrying President Obama and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. AP Photo.

As if storm-weary New Jersey hadn't suffered enough.

Accuweather.com is reporting that a storm heading up the coast may bring another round of flooding to the state Tuesday night into Wednesday. While the storm just looks like a typical nor'easter, forecasters are worried it may create major flooding:

The concern comes because of the fact that the protective dunes along the coast were basically wiped out from Atlantic City, N.J. on northward. This in turn, allows for any water rise to have free reign to flow into coastal communities with no barriers.

If the storm track holds, Jersey could see a water rise of two to four feet on top of normal tide channels, Accuweather says. That means during high tide Wednesday afternoon, water levels could rise as much as eight or nine feet.

Thankfully, there's still a chance the storm could pass further offshore.
PHOTOS ON SKYE: Before and After Superstorm Sandy

 

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'What Can I Do?' New Yorkers Band Together to Help

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Volunteers walk toward homes to help residents clean up Saturday in Staten Island, N.Y. AP Photo.

NEW YORK (AP) - Normally on a Saturday morning, Erica Siegel, a 33-year-old real estate agent, would be working or taking a run. But this weekend found her packing rolls of toilet paper, boxes of garbage bags, and canned vegetables and soups to bring to a Queens park, where they would be sorted for delivery to storm victims.

Siegel's also been asking fellow real estate agents to join her in an effort, advertised on Facebook pages and blogs, to find vacant homes - for sale or rent - to help house storm evacuees.

"I have to tell you, it feels like a virus going around, this need to help," she said, speaking a mile a minute as she raced to get out of her house. "So many people are feeling it."

In ways big and small, ordinary people from storm-affected areas are seeking out opportunities to help. In terms of drama, these efforts don't rise to the level of the heroic rescues that have made TV newscasts - like the man who ventured into chest-deep waters to rescue a stranded cab driver. But they are a way, these people say, of giving something, if just a little, to those who, by mere chance and geography, suffered more than they did.

"It turns out, people really, really want to do something," said Lyn Pentecost of the Lower Eastside Girls Club, which serves some 150 low-income families and was thrilled to find supporters donating more than $15,000 in less than four hours Saturday, following a 7 a.m. email. "They just want to know how to do it."

A world away on the Upper East Side, where power was never lost, Kim Hartman, a mother of three, was one of those who found herself searching for ways to help.

"I looked at the kids and they were sitting around, doing nothing," she said. "I wanted to stop the inertia."

RELATED ON SKYE: Superstorm Was Cruel to Elderly Who Refused to Evacuate

So she took two of her kids and a friend to a local food pantry, where they spent three hours preparing packages for the needy. It turned out there were too many volunteers on subsequent days, so this weekend, the family is making hundreds of packaged lunches at home and bringing them over.

"This makes it very real to my kids," said Hartman, who's also hosting four guests from areas without power. "You can look at the pictures, but I think you need to walk out the front door, to really feel the change that has happened in the city."

The efforts are being organized in a myriad of ways: On Facebook pages and Twitter feeds, community blogs, school email lists, or by word of mouth. They are supplementing the much larger-scale efforts by relief agencies like the American Red Cross and religious-affiliated organizations like the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, the Catholic Charities of New York or the United Methodist Committee on Relief.

The smaller, community-based efforts tend to focus on more specific needs. And so, while the Red Cross encourages financial donations, rather than material goods, as the most effective way to help, Staten Islander Sean Sweeney's Facebook page is full of requests for work gloves, boys' shoes, a generator for a family in distress, or an immediate need for manpower on a certain street corner.

"Anyone looking to get dirty can meet me at 326 Seaver Avenue this morning," Sweeney, a former community board chairman in the hard-hit borough and also an amateur photographer, posted on Saturday. "Bring gloves and your Resolve and I don't mean carpet cleaner."

"I am looking for boys' clothes 'n toys for 8 and 10 year old boys!!!" one woman wrote earlier. "Work gloves are needed," wrote another. "New - Used - Mismatched. It doesn't matter."

A few days ago on his page, Sweeney says, he asked if anyone could spare a generator for a man who was a quadriplegic and had no power. Within hours, he had not only a generator but someone to help him bring it over.

"People have opened their hearts," Sweeney said. "With Staten Islanders, there's zero degrees of separation. This is the kind of thing Staten Islanders do."

In Queens, where Siegel, the real estate agent, was packing food and supplies on Saturday, she was joined by fellow teammates who had all planned to run Sunday's marathon together. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had canceled the race the night before. So the team decided to meet anyway and keep an earlier plan to work on hurricane relief, followed by a brainstorming session for their next marathon, in Pennsylvania next week.

On the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where residents were relatively unaffected by Sandy, volunteer coordinator Shelly Fine found a similar spirit of resolve.

Fine, a former assistant schools superintendent who is trained in rescue efforts, put out an appeal for volunteers and found himself fielding hundreds of calls and emails. "People were very forthcoming, offering their time and their skills," he said. "They're saying, 'What can I do?'"

Fine found that the best use of his own time was sitting in front of the computer and matching offers to needs - for example, two shelters closed and he had to redirect people to another. One shelter found it needed hygienic wipes to clean cots. Another needed trained medical personnel.

RELATED ON SKYE: Power Sputters Back to Region After the Storm

Elliot Zweig, 32, works at a nonprofit think tank, and found himself wanting to help out on Wednesday. He contacted Fine through a blog called the West Side Rag. Soon, he and his wife, a nurse practitioner, were staffing the medical room of a shelter on 84th Street. It was the first time Zweig had volunteered in a similar way since 9/11.

"I watched the TV news, saw all the tragedy and devastation, and I felt very spared - I was safe and comfortable," Zweig said. "We were the lucky ones, who could help."

This week, it's been hard to log onto a website of any organization - a school, a gym, even a store - and not see a reference to Sandy and efforts to help. The 92nd Street Y, in Manhattan, offered families free arts classes and gym time. PTA groups at schools discussed bake sales to raise money.

On a larger scale, NBC held a benefit concert Friday night, featuring Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen and other stars, with donations going to the Red Cross. Barneys New York, the luxury store, was giving 10 percent of its proceeds from Sunday sales to the Red Cross.

Some recovery efforts involved not a group, but merely an individual seeking to help a neighbor. Julia Strom spent three nights - from 6 p.m. to 9 a.m. - caring for a woman in her 90s by candlelight. Doing so "was a privilege; it heightens and beautifies life," the 53-year-old Strom said.

Sometimes, agreed Pentecost, of the Lower Eastside Girls Club, it's the littlest things that count the most - what she called "small acts of great love."

Her group was planning to take the thousands of dollars raised this weekend and stuff a bunch of $20 bills into envelopes for families who need to pay that next cellphone bill. Or stock the refrigerator.

"People have to throw out everything in their fridges," she noted. "This is restock-the-fridge money."

"I understand the need for FEMA and the Red Cross and all the rest," she added. "But we're talking about no lines, no red tape. Just immediate help. These people have suffered enough."

PHOTOS ON SKYE: Before and After Superstorm Sandy

 

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