People wait in line to fill containers with fuel at a Shell gas station Oct 30, in Edison, New Jersey/AFP
Three US nuclear power reactors remained shut and a fourth on alert, after storm waters wreaked havoc with transmission networks and cooling systems.
Despite worries that water could overwhelm the reactors, as had happened in Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, authorities insisted there were no risks to the public.
Insured losses from the massive superstorm Sandy could run between seven and 15 billion dollars (5.4 to 11.5 billion euros), according to initial industry estimates.
Inland, Sandy dumped three feet (90 centimetres) of snow on high ground in Appalachian states as she headed west and north, spreading blizzard conditions over parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
New Yorker Sharon Romano recalled how she had been sitting in the front room of her house when storm waters flooded seafront areas of the city and a nearby power station exploded, plunging much of Manhattan into darkness.
Romano went out onto 14th Street and all she could see was water from the East River: “It was just like a beach with no sand.”
Elsewhere in New York, in the oceanside community of Breezy Point, residents sifted through the rubble after a massive fire somehow destroyed more than 80 homes in an area that had flooded during the storm.
Carol Anderson, 53, whose nearby house escaped the fire but not the flooding, had trouble identifying where streets had been as she picked her way over charred beams and under scorched, dangling telephone and electrical lines.
“What a disaster. It’s like a warzone,” she said.
The New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq were shut for their first weather-related closures since Hurricane Gloria in 1985, but both aimed to reopen on Wednesday morning.
The destruction was not limited to New York. Cities up and down the Eastern Seaboard from Boston to Philadelphia to Washington were buffeted by storm-force winds and coastal communities suffered widespread flooding.
Forecasters warned that flooding would continue along the densely-populated mid-Atlantic coast and 7,400 National Guardsmen remained mobilized in 11 states to provide emergency relief.
Obama strove to display leadership in the face of the storm in a bid to avoid repeating the mistakes of predecessor George W. Bush, whose bungled response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 tainted his presidency.
“Do not figure out why we can’t do something. I want you to figure out how we do something,” he told government officials during a surprise visit Tuesday to the American Red Cross in Washington.
“I want you to cut through red tape. I want you to cut through bureaucracy. There’s no excuse for inaction at this point.”
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