Well, it is over. This storm was as bad as could be imagined and as
predicted. Even better, just about everyone heeded common sense and
got well out of harms way. That could not protect from flying debris
or toppling trees, but could get folks well clear of obvious death
traps.
No one has got a meaningful measure of the damage yet, but recall the
area affected was an order of magnitude larger than any comparable.
Thus a figure of 50 billion is not unreasonable.
The truth is that we came through this far better than we might have.
We did not lose any dams nor did we lose a city. Much of this is
because serious storms themselves are not unheard of and preparation
is always in place. Thus Sandy just took it all up one solid notch.
Building out of it, we will be that much better prepared simply
because we now truly know what the worst looks like. The same holds
true on the west coast of Japan and the east coast of Sumatra.
A worthy note to all this. We had a storm surge of 13 feet across
the whole New York through Long Island waterfront that coincided with
high tide. This informs us that we are survivable to a tsunami of
that size here. This is a very unlikely event, however it has
happened just as this extremely unlikely storm event happened. It is
good to know we have a high threshold.
The recovery will take some time, but not forever either. Nothing serious apppears to be compromised.
US coastal
residents try to pick up after monster storm, but challenge of
rebuilding remains
.
By Adam Geller, The
Associated Press October 31, 2012 9:00 AM
Read more:
NEW YORK, N.Y. -
People in the battered U.S. East Coast corridor took the first
cautious steps to reclaim their upended daily routines Wednesday,
even as the National Guard searched for flood victims in New Jersey
and fires still raged two days after superstorm Sandy. Two major
airports reopened and the New York Stock Exchange came back to life.
For the first time
since the storm pummeled the Northeast, killing 59 people and doing
billions of dollars in damage, brilliant sunshine washed over the
nation's largest city — a striking sight after days of grey skies,
rain and wind.
At the stock exchange,
running on generator power, Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a thumbs-up
and rang the opening bell to whoops from traders on the floor.
Trading resumed after the first two-day weather shutdown since the
Blizzard of 1888.
Kennedy and Newark
Liberty airports reopened with limited service Wednesday morning. New
York's LaGuardia Airport, which suffered far worse damage and where
water covered parts of runways, remained closed.
It was 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.
About 6.5 million
homes and businesses were still without power, including 4 million in
New York and New Jersey. Electricity was out as far west as Wisconsin
and as far south as the Carolinas.
The scale of the
challenge could be seen in New Jersey, where National Guard troops
arrived in the heavily flooded city of Hoboken to help evacuate
thousands still stuck in their homes and deliver ready-to-eat meals.
Live wires dangled in floodwaters that Mayor Dawn Zimmer said were
rapidly mixing with sewage.
Thousands of people
were still holed up in their brownstones, condos, and other homes in
the city across the Hudson River from New York.
And new problems arose
when firefighters were unable to reach blazes rekindled by natural
gas leaks in the heavily hit shore town of Mantoloking. More than a
dozen homes were destroyed.
President Barack Obama
was planning to visit New Jersey, which was directly in the storm's
path Monday night and where part of the historic boardwalk washed
away.
Gov. Chris Christie
said he plans to ask the president to assign the Army Corps of
Engineers to work on how to rebuild beaches and find "the best
way to rebuild the beach to protect these towns."
As New York began its
second day after the megastorm, morning rush-hour traffic was heavy
as people started returning to work. There was even a sign of
normalcy: commuters waiting at bus stops.
On the Brooklyn
Bridge, closed earlier because of high winds, joggers and bikers made
their way across the span before sunrise. One cyclist carried a
flashlight. Car traffic on the bridge was busy, and slowed as it
neared Manhattan.
A huge line formed at
the Empire State Building as the observation deck opened for the
first time since the storm.
The Brooklyn-Battery
Tunnel, connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan, and the Holland Tunnel,
between New York and New Jersey, remained closed. But bridges into
the city were open, and city buses were running, free of charge.
School was cancelled
for a third straight day Wednesday in the city, where many students
rely on buses and subways to reach classrooms.
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. High water
prevented inspectors from immediately assessing damage to key
equipment.
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 could also be the weekend before power is
restored to Manhattan and Brooklyn, perhaps longer for other New York
boroughs and the New York suburbs.
Amtrak also laid out
plans to resume some passenger train service in the Northeast on
Wednesday. 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 was no Northeast
Regional service between New York and Boston. No date has been set
for when it might resume.
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."
And in New York,
residents of the flooded beachfront neighbourhood of Breezy Point
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, 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 would cause $20 billion in damage and $10
billion to $30 billion in lost business. Another firm, AIR Worldwide,
estimated losses up to $15 billion.
___
Contributors to this
report included Associated Press writers Angela Delli Santi in
Belmar, New Jersey; Geoff Mulvihill and Larry Rosenthal in Trenton,
New Jersey; Katie Zezima in Atlantic City, New Jersey; Samantha Henry
in Jersey City, New Jersey; Pat Eaton-Robb and Michael Melia in
Hartford, Connecticut; Susan Haigh in New London, Connecticut; John
Christoffersen in Bridgeport, Connecticut; Alicia Caldwell and Martin
Crutsinger in Washington; David Klepper in South Kingstown, Rhode
Island; David B. Caruso, Colleen Long, Jennifer Peltz, Tom Hays,
Larry Neumei
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