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 could run as high as $50 billion US.
New York City was slowly coming back to life, starting with the partial reopening Thursday of vital subways, three days after the storm hit. However, neighbouring 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.
Police tape blocks the entrance to a fuelling station where people wait in line in Brooklyn, New York Harbour on Friday. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)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.
"You have to realize that the damage here is just so widespread," the CBC's Tom Parry reported from New York on Friday morning. "And really, in places the damage is just absolutely devastating."
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.
Casinos allowed to reopen
In Atlantic City, N.J., where casinos were told they could reopen Friday, Monty Dahm was using his restaurant to feed about 200 emergency workers despite a persisting power outage.
"We had dinner by candlelight," he told CBC News by phone.
Dahm said floodwaters, more than high winds, caused most of the damage in the city of 40,000 residents.
"I had five feet of water inside my house. I had two feet of seaweed, dead fish and bugs," he said. "The smell was horrendous."
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 kilometres and long gas lines formed. New York City authorities say a motorist was arrested after he tried to cut in line at a gas station in Queens early Thursday and pointed a pistol at another motorist who complained.
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 hoping to restore power by Saturday.
Long recovery expected in some areas
"I think that there's are probably a lot of people out there that just want to get through today, the last work day, get into the weekend, and hope that things are going to improve," Parry said.
John Okeefe walks on the beach as a rollercoaster in Seaside Heights, N.J., rests in the ocean on Wednesday. (Julio Cortez/Associated Press)"But when you go farther out" from Manhattan, he added, "the damage is so devastating that it's going to take a lot longer for any semblance of normality to come back to those places."
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 4 C on 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 neighbourhood, 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 1.5 metres 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.
"The problems are huge," Parry said. "The traffic problems, the electricity problems, there's just a lot to deal with and I think that authorities are struggling to attend to every need that's out there."
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.
With files from CBC NewsAnda sedang membaca artikel tentang
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