After Hurricane Sandy's Fury, a Daunting Recovery for Region

As of Wednesday morning Hurricane Sandy has left at least 55 people dead along the Atlantic Coast, splintering beachfront homes and flooding neighborhoods as more than 7 million people remain without electricity - some as far away as Michigan.

Nearly a quarter of those without power were in New York, where lower Manhattan's usually bright lights remained dark for a second night.

People in the coastal corridor battered by superstorm Sandy took the first cautious steps Wednesday to reclaim routines upended by the disaster, even as rescuers combed neighborhoods strewn with debris and scarred by floods and fire.

But while New York City buses returned to darkened streets, two airports reopened and the New York Stock Exchange prepared to resume trading, it became clear that restoring the region to its ordinarily frenetic pace could take days — and that rebuilding the hardest-hit communities and the transportation networks that link them together could take considerably longer.

"We will get through the days ahead by doing what we always do in tough times — by standing together, shoulder to shoulder, ready to help a neighbor, comfort a stranger and get the city we love back on its feet," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

The scale of the challenge was clear across the Hudson River in New Jersey, where National Guard troops arrived in the heavily flooded city of Hoboken to help evacuate thousands still stuck in their homes. And new problems arose when firefighters were unable to reach blazes rekindled by natural gas leaks in the heavily hit shore town of Mantoloking.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/10/31/hurricane-sandy-struggle-region-hit-by-sandy-struggles-to-resume-daily-life/#ixzz2At9p9miB