People in the coastal corridor battered by
superstorm Sandy took the first cautious steps to reclaim routines upended by
the disaster, even as rescuers combed neighborhoods strewn with debris and
scarred by floods and fire.
But while New York City buses returned to
darkened streets eerily free of traffic and the New York Stock Exchange
prepared to reopen its storied trading floor Wednesday, it became clear that
restoring the region to its ordinarily frenetic pace could take days -- and
that rebuilding the hardest-hit communities and the transportation networks
that link them together could take considerably longer.
"We will get through the days ahead by
doing what we always do in tough times -- by standing together, shoulder to
shoulder, ready to help a neighbor, comfort a stranger and get the city we love
back on its feet," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
By late Tuesday, the winds and flooding inflicted
by the fast-weakening Sandy had subsided, leaving at least 55 people dead along
the Atlantic Coast and splintering beachfront homes and boardwalks from the
mid-Atlantic states to southern New England.
The storm later moved across Pennsylvania
on a predicted path toward New York State and Canada.
At the height of the disaster, more than
8.2 million lost electricity -- some as far away as Michigan. Nearly a quarter
of those without power were in New York, where lower Manhattan's usually bright
lights remained dark for a second night.
But, amid the despair, talk of recovery was
already beginning.
"It's heartbreaking after being here
37 years," Barry Prezioso of Point Pleasant, N.J., said as he returned to
his house in the beachfront community to survey the damage. "You see your
home demolished like this, it's tough. But nobody got hurt and the upstairs is
still livable, so we can still live upstairs and clean this out. I'm sure
there's people that had worse. I feel kind of lucky."
Much of the initial recovery efforts
focused on New York City, the region's economic heart. Bloomberg said it could
take four or five days before the subway, which suffered the worst damage in
its 108-year history, is running again. All 10 of the tunnels that carry
commuters under the East River were flooded. But high water prevented
inspectors from immediately assessing damage to key equipment, raising the
possibility that the nation's largest city could endure an extended shutdown of
the system that 5 million people count on to get to work and school each day.
The chairman of the state agency that runs the subway, Joseph Lhota, said
service might have to resume piecemeal, and experts said the cost of the
repairs could be staggering.
Power company Consolidated Edison said it
would be four days before the last of the 337,000 customers in Manhattan and
Brooklyn who lost power have electricity again and it could take a week to
restore outages in the Bronx, Queens, Staten Island and Westchester County.
Floodwater led to explosions that disabled a power substation Monday night,
contributing to the outages.
Surveying the widespread damage, it was
clear much of the recovery and rebuilding will take far longer.
When New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie stopped
in Belmar, N.J., during a tour of the devastation, one woman wept openly and
42-year-old Walter Patrickis told him, "Governor, I lost everything."
Christie, who called the shore damage
"unthinkable," said a full recovery would take months, at least, and
it would likely be a week or more before power is restored to everyone who lost
it.
"Now we've got a big task ahead of us
that we have to do together. This is the kind of thing New Jerseyans are built
for," he said. President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit the state
Wednesday to inspect the storm damage.
By sundown Tuesday, however, announcements
from officials and scenes on the streets signaled that New York and nearby
towns were edging toward a semblance of routine.
First came the reopening of highways in
Connecticut and bridges across the Hudson and East rivers, although the
Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan, and the Holland
Tunnel, between New York and New Jersey, remained closed.
A limited number of the white and blue
buses that crisscross New York's grid returned Tuesday evening to Broadway and
other thoroughfares on a reduced schedule -- but free of charge. Gov. Andrew
Cuomo said he hoped there would be full service by Wednesday. Still, school was
canceled for a third straight day Wednesday in the city, where many students
rely on buses and subways to reach classrooms.
In one bit of good news, officials
announced that John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Newark
International Airport in New Jersey would reopen at 7 a.m. Wednesday with
limited service. New York's LaGuardia Airport remains closed.
The New York Stock Exchange was again
silent Tuesday -- the first weather-related, two-day closure since the 19th
century -- but trading was scheduled to resume Wednesday morning with Bloomberg
ringing the opening bell.
Amtrak also laid out plans to resume some
runs in the Northeast on Wednesday, with modified service between Newark, N.J.,
and points south. That includes restoring Virginia service to Lynchburg,
Richmond and Newport News, Keystone trains in Pennsylvania, and Downeaster
service between Boston and Portland, Maine.
But flooding continues to prevent service
to and from New York's Penn Station. Amtrak said the amount of water in train
tunnels under the Hudson and East rivers is unprecedented. There will be no
Northeast Regional service between New York and Boston and no Acela Express
service for the entire length of the Northeast Corridor. No date has been set
for when it might resume.
But even with the return of some
transportation and plans to reopen schools and businesses, the damage and pain
inflicted by Sandy continued to unfold, confirming the challenge posed by
rebuilding.
In New Jersey, amusement rides that once
crowned a pier in Seaside Heights were dumped into the ocean, some homes were
smashed, and others were partially buried in sand.
Farther north in Hoboken, across the Hudson
from Manhattan, New Jersey National Guard troops arrived Tuesday night with
high-wheeled vehicles to reach thousands of flood victims stuck in their homes.
They arrived to find a town with live wires dangling in the floodwaters that
Mayor Dawn Zimmer said were rapidly mixing with sewage. At nightfall, the city
turned almost completely dark.
About 2.1 million homes and businesses
remained without power across the state late Tuesday. When Tropical Storm Irene
struck last year, it took more than a week to restore power everywhere. The
state's largest utility, PSE&G, said it was trying to dry out substations
it had to shut down.
Outages in the state's two largest cities, Newark
and Jersey City, left traffic signals dark, resulting in numerous
fender-benders at intersections where police were not directing traffic. And in
one Jersey City supermarket, there were long lines to get bread and a spot at
an outlet to charge cellphones.
Trees and power lines were down in every
corner of the state. Schools and state government offices were closed for a
second day, and many called off classes for Wednesday, too. The governor said
the PATH trains connecting northern New Jersey with Manhattan would be out of
service for at least seven to 10 days because of flooding. All the New Jersey
Transit rail lines were damaged, he said, and it was not clear when the rail
lines would be able to open.
In Connecticut, some residents of Fairfield
returned home in kayaks and canoes to inspect widespread damage left by
retreating floodwaters that kept other homeowners at bay.
"The uncertainty is the worst,"
said Jessica Levitt, who was told it could be a week before she can enter her
house. "Even if we had damage, you just want to be able to do something.
We can't even get started."
The storm caused irreparable damage to
homes in East Haven, Milford and other shore towns. Still, many were grateful
the storm did not deliver a bigger blow, considering the havoc wrought in New
York City and New Jersey.
"I feel like we are blessed,"
said Bertha Weismann, whose garage was flooded in Bridgeport. "It could
have been worse."
And in New York, residents of the flooded
beachfront neighborhood of Breezy Point in returned home to find fire had taken
everything the water had not. A huge blaze destroyed perhaps 100 homes in the
close-knit community where many had stayed behind despite being told to
evacuate.
John Frawley, 57, acknowledged the mistake.
Frawley, who lived about five houses from the fire's edge, said he spent the
night terrified "not knowing if the fire was going to jump the boulevard
and come up to my house."
"I stayed up all night," he said.
"The screams. The fire. It was horrifying."
There were still only hints of the economic
impact of the storm.
Forecasting firm IHS Global Insight
predicted it will end up causing about $20 billion in damage and $10 billion to
$30 billion in lost business. Another firm, AIR Worldwide, estimated losses up
to $15 billion -- big numbers probably offset by reconstruction and repairs
that will contribute to longer-term growth.
"The biggest problem is not the first
few days but the coming months," said Alan Rubin, an expert in natural
disaster recovery.
Some of those who lost homes and businesses
to Sandy were promising to return and rebuild, but many sounded chastened by
their encounter with nature's fury. They included Tom Shalvey of Warwick, R.I.,
whose 500-square-foot cottage on the beach in South Kingstown was washed away
by raging surf, leaving a utility pipe as the only marker of where it once sat.
"We love the beach. We had many great
times here," Shalvey said. "We will be back. But it will not be on
the front row."
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