New York reels from hurricane Sandy: 'Unprecedented ... is what we got.'

A day after hurricane Sandy threw damaging winds and a historic storm surge at New York, the city girded for a long recovery from widespread power outages and a flooded subway.

By Ron Scherer,?Staff writer / October 30, 2012

Cars are submerged at the entrance to a parking garage in New York's Financial District in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, Tuesday.

Richard Drew/AP

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As much as it has captivated the nation, the crane left dangling high over Manhattan?s 57th Street by hurricane Sandy?s destructive winds likely is the least of the city?s problems.

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A day after Sandy battered the region with powerful winds and a historic storm surge, New York faces the challenges of getting its flooded mass transit system, which carries about 7 million passengers each day, back up and running and restoring electricity to the significant portion of the city left in the dark.

Officials are also still assessing the damage done to La Guardia Airport, which suffered extensive damage from waves breaking over its runway.

?We expected an unprecedented storm and that is what we got,? said Mayor Michael Bloomberg at a press conference Tuesday morning. ?The damage is extensive and will not be repaired overnight.?

As of Tuesday morning, Mr. Bloomberg said 750,000 New York City residents were without electricity. To prevent damage to its steam system, which provides heat and hot water to many buildings, Con Edison shut that system down in advance. That, too, needed to be restarted.

?Power may be out in some places for two or three days or maybe longer,? said Bloomberg.

The mayor might be overly optimistic. Con Edison uses the subway tunnels for many of its cables and some of those tunnels are now filled with salt water. The worst damage was in lower Manhattan, where as a result of the storm surge the Hudson River topped its banks on one side of the island and the East River on the other.

?When you fill a subway tunnel loaded with electrical cables with salt water, that is a bad combination,? Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a press briefing.

The water filling the tunnels also meant that the subways might be out for some time. Officials said some stations had water all the way to their ceilings.

?This is the most devastating thing we?ve ever had happen,? said Joseph Lhota, the chairman and CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority at a press briefing.

One indication of the challenges facing the MTA: a 40-foot power boat was washed across the railroad tracks that bring commuters into New York.

In fact through Tuesday, Amtrak, which connects with Boston and Washington, still had no train service in or out of New York City.

The only bright spot for mass transit was the bus system. The city?s buses were moved to high ground before the height of the storm and did not suffer any losses. Limited bus service was expected to resume Tuesday evening with full service on Wednesday.

The city?s subway cars were also moved in advance to secure locations, so once the tunnels are safe for passengers, service can begin again.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/-NzbSofC4pU/New-York-reels-from-hurricane-Sandy-Unprecedented-is-what-we-got.

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