In the worst-hit neighborhoods 59 New York polling stations were listed as closed, and voters were instructed to go to alternative sites, while in New Jersey, authorities were allowing limited numbers to cast votes by email or fax.
“Up to the minute changes are happening across the city,” J. C. Polanco, president of the New York City Board of Elections, said on NY1 television.
The bigger problem looming for people left homeless, or with damaged homes, was the impending winter and, more immediately, a strong gale forecasted for Wednesday.
Nighttime temperatures were close to freezing this week and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg estimated that 30,000 to 40,000 homes in the city alone had been left unusable by the October 29 storm.
“It is starting to get cold, people are in homes that are uninhabitable,” New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo said. “We are going to have tens of thousands of people who need housing solutions right away.”
“This is going to be a massive, massive housing problem,” the governor said.
Sandy, which began as a deadly hurricane in the Caribbean, pummeled 15 US states and prompted a huge tidal surge that killed at least 109 people in the United States and Canada and caused tens of billions of dollars worth of damage.
A high-level government delegation, including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, was due to tour the region Monday.
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