NEW YORK: Victims of superstorm Sandy on the US East Coast struggled against the cold early yesterday amid fuel shortages and power outages even as officials fretted about getting voters displaced by the storm to polling stations for Tuesday’s presidential election.
Overnight, near-freezing temperatures gripped the US northeast. At least two more victims were found in New Jersey, one dead of hypothermia, as the overall death toll from one of worst storms in US history climbed to at least 112.
Fuel supplies continued to rumble toward disaster zones and electricity was slowly returning to darkened neighbourhoods after a storm that hit the coast last Monday. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it would be days before power is fully restored and fuel shortages end.
Power restorations over the weekend relit the skyline in Lower Manhattan for the first time in nearly a week and allowed 80 percent of the New York City subway service to resume. Some 2.5 million homes and business still lacked power across the Northeast on Saturday, down from 3.5 million on Friday.
Temperatures dipped to 39 Fahrenheit early yesterday morning in New York City, the lowest in days, with below-freezing temperatures expected today. An early-season “Nor’easter” storm was expected to hit the battered New England coast this week with strong winds and heavy rain.
President Barack Obama, neck-and-neck in opinion polls with Republican challenger Mitt Romney, ordered emergency response officials to cut through government “red tape” and work without delay to help affected areas return to normal.
Officials have expressed concern about getting voters displaced by Sandy to polling stations for Tuesday’s election. Scores of voting centers were rendered useless by the record surge of seawater in New York and New Jersey.
New Jersey is allowing voters displaced by Sandy to vote by email. Some voters in New York could be casting their ballots in tents.
An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released on Sunday found that 68 percent of those surveyed approved of how Obama handled Sandy and just 15 percent disapproved.
The post-storm chaos in the region has overshadowed the final days of campaigning.
“I’m not thinking about the election too much right now,” said Frank Carrol, 59, a retired New York City transit worker who lives in Staten Island. He planned to vote, but did not know if his local polling station would even be open. “We’ll stop by and see what happens,” Carrol said.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie ordered county clerks to open on Saturday and Sunday to accommodate early voters and ensure a “full, fair and transparent open voting process.”
The two new deaths in New Jersey — where the storm came shore last Monday night — included a 71-year-old man who suffered from hypothermia and another man, 55, who died from smoke inhalation in a house fire, police said yesterday.
Reuters
