NEW YORK: The lower Manhattan skyline lit up early yesterday morning for the first time since superstorm Sandy slammed into the US Northeast while thousands of storm victims in New Jersey and elsewhere remained in the dark and awaiting disaster relief.
The power restoration came as petrol supplies headed to coastal zones devastated by the record storm surge and to motorists whose patience has been tested by gasoline rationing during the painstaking effort to rebuild.
With the US presidential election just three days away, about 3 million homes and business remained without power in a region choked with storm debris and long gas lines reminiscent of the 1970s-era US fuel shortage. Angry storm victims wondered when their lives would return to normal.
President Barack Obama won early praise for the federal response to Sandy, which hammered the US northeast coast on Monday with 130kph winds and a record surge of seawater that swamped homes in New Jersey and flooded streets and subway tunnels in New York City.
But continued television and newspaper images of upset storm victims could hurt the Democrat, who is locked in a virtual draw with Republican challenger Mitt Romney. The US death toll hit 102 on Friday, after Sandy killed 69 people as a hurricane in the Caribbean. It struck the New Jersey coast on Monday as a rare hybrid after the hurricane merged with a powerful storm system in the north Atlantic.
Power utility Consolidated Edison, battling what it called the worst natural disaster in the company’s 180-year history, restored electricity to neighbourhoods such as Wall Street, Chinatown and Greenwich Village in the pre-dawn hours, leaving 11,000 customers in Manhattan without service.
“There’s enough light and activity to get a lot of people on the street and get rid of that movie set look as if were in some kind of ghost town or horror movie,” Con Ed spokesman Bob McGee told NY1 television.
In New Jersey, the utility PSE&G said 612,000 customers were still without lights after power to 1 million had been restored.
Con Ed said it had restored power to 70 percent of the 916,000 customers in the New York City area who were cut off. The company was still busy assisting tens of thousands more without power in New York City’s outer boroughs, where some people complained of being ignored.
Reuters
