$20-billion monster ‘worst ever’
Northeast begins its long recovery
NEW YORK — Looking at the smouldering remnants, twisted steel frames and corrugated iron sheets it is perhaps difficult to tell. But before the United States’ biggest-ever storm wrought its carnage, the now desolate and burning wasteland of Breezy Point was a thriving seaside community in New York City.
This is a neighbourhood of Queens, where, in the early hours of Tuesday, at least 80 homes were destroyed in a fire.
The image captured the ferocity unleashed by a storm that has left much of the United States’ eastern seaboard in chaos.
“We were spared,” said one Queens resident, Tom de Maria, as he passed by the remains in Breezy Point. “But all these people have lost their homes. It’s crazy. I’ve never seen anything as bad as this.”
Tuesday, the U.S. death toll climbed to at least 48, with many of the victims killed as a result of falling trees and flying debris. One Toronto woman also died Monday. Sixty-nine people were killed in the Caribbean last week before Sandy headed north.
Some of the best-known streets in the world — Fifth Avenue and Broadway — were silent and empty Tuesday; more than eight million residents across the U.S. East Coast were without power; and subway tunnels were flooded.
U.S. President Barack Obama declared a major disaster in New York and Long Island, making federal funding available to residents of the area. He suspended campaigning for a third day Wednesday, and planned to view the damage in New Jersey.
Obama, speaking during a stop Tuesday at Red Cross headquarters, called the storm “heartbreaking for the nation.”
The president offered his thoughts and prayers to those affected and told them “America is with you.” He said he also told government officials co-ordinating the response that there was “no excuse for inaction.”
And he said he told governors in affected areas that if they get no for an answer, “they can call me personally at the White House.”
Streets in the city usually teeming with workers and tourists were instead littered with fallen trees, scattered debris and cars floating in water.
New York University’s Tisch Hospital was forced to evacuate 200 patients after its backup generator failed. NYU medical dean Robert Grossman said patients — among them 20 babies from the neonatal intensive-care unit who were on batterypowered respirators — had to be carried down staircases and to dozens of ambulances waiting to take them to other hospitals.
Swaths of the southern tip of Manhattan and the edges of Brooklyn suffered severe damage following a four- metre storm surge that overwhelmed low-lying areas. A city that has so often provided the backdrop for disaster movies was left resembling the set of one.
Sandy caused the worst damage in the 108-year history of the city’s subway system. The United States’ biggest transport network may not open again for another four or five days, according to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
“This was a devastating storm, maybe the worst that we have ever experienced,” Bloomberg said.
The water inundated tunnels, subway stations and the electrical system that powers Wall Street. Skyscrapers swayed and creaked in winds that partially toppled a crane 74 storeys above Midtown. A large tanker ship ran aground on Staten Island.
Water cascaded into the gaping, unfinished construction pit at the World Trade Center, and the New York Stock Exchange was closed for a second day, the first time that has happened because of weather since the Blizzard of 1888. The NYSE said it will reopen Wednesday
In New Jersey, where the superstorm came ashore, Sandy cut off barrier islands, swept houses from their foundations and washed amusement pier rides into the ocean. It also wrecked several boardwalks up and down the coast, tearing away a section of Atlantic City’s world-famous promenade.
A hoarse-voiced New Jersey governor gave bleak news at a news conference: Seaside rail lines washed away. No safe place on the state’s barrier islands for him to land. Parts of the coast still under water.
“It is beyond anything I thought I’d ever see,” Chris Christie said. “It is a devastating sight right now.”
Sandy brought blizzard conditions to West Virginia and neighbouring Appalachian states, with more than half a metre of snow expected in some places.
Sandy will end up causing about $20 billion in property damage and $10 billion to $30 billion more in lost business, making it one of the costliest natural disasters on record in the U.S., according to IHS Global Insight, a forecasting firm.
Republican challenger for the presidency, Mitt Romney resumed his campaign, but used a rally in Ohio to collect donations of canned goods and other supplies destined to be shipped to the Eastern Seaboard.