Exasperation builds on Day 3 in storm-stricken NYC

Dry ice is unloaded from a flatbed truck in Union Square for dis­tri­b­u­tion to res­i­dents of the still pow­er­less Chelsea sec­tion of Man­hat­tan Thurs­day. Three days after super­storm Sandy wal­loped the city, res­i­dents and com­muters still faced obsta­cles as they tried to return to pre-storm rou­tines. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Louis Lanzano)

LEANNE ITALIE

MEGHAN BARR

Asso­ci­ated Press

NEW YORK — Frus­tra­tion — and in some cases fear — mounted in New York City on Thurs­day, three days after Super­storm Sandy. Traf­fic backed up for miles at bridges, large crowds waited impa­tiently for buses into Man­hat­tan, and tem­pers flared in gas lines.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city would send bot­tled water and ready-to-eat meals into the hardest-hit neigh­bor­hoods through the week­end, but some New York­ers grew dispir­ited after days with­out power, water and heat and decided to get out.

“It’s dirty, and it’s get­ting a lit­tle crazy down there,” said Michael Tomeo, who boarded a bus to Philadel­phia with his 4-year-old son. “It just feels like you wouldn’t want to be out at night. Everything’s pitch dark. I’m tired of it, big-time.”

Rima Finzi-Strauss decided to take the bus to Wash­ing­ton. When the power went out Mon­day night in her apart­ment build­ing on the Lower East Side of Man­hat­tan, it also dis­abled the elec­tric locks on the front door, she said.

“We had three guys sit­ting out in the lobby last night with can­dle­light, and very threat­en­ing folks were pass­ing by in the pitch black,” she said. “And everyone’s leav­ing. That makes it worse.”

The mount­ing despair came even as the sub­ways began rolling again after a three-day shut­down. Ser­vice was restored to most of the city, but not the most stricken parts of Man­hat­tan and Brook­lyn, where the tun­nels were flooded.

Bridges into the city were open, but police enforced a car­pool­ing rule and peered into win­dows to make sure each car had at least three peo­ple. The rule was meant to ease con­ges­tion but appeared to worsen it. Traf­fic jams stretched for miles, and dri­vers who made it into the city reported that some peo­ple got out of their cars to argue with police.

Rose­marie Zurlo said she planned to leave Man­hat­tan for her sister’s place in Brook­lyn because her own apart­ment was freez­ing, “but I’ll never be able to come back here because I don’t have three peo­ple to put in my car.”

With only par­tial sub­way ser­vice, lines at bus stops swelled. More than 1,000 peo­ple packed the side­walk out­side an arena in Brook­lyn, wait­ing for buses to Man­hat­tan. Nearby, hun­dreds of peo­ple massed on a sidewalk.

When a bus pulled up, pas­sen­gers rushed the door. A tran­sit worker banged on a bus win­dow, yelled at peo­ple inside, and then yelled at peo­ple in the line.

With the elec­tric­ity out and gaso­line sup­plies scarce, many gas sta­tions across the New York area remained closed, and sta­tions that were open drew long lines of cars that spilled out onto roads.

At a sta­tion near Coney Island, almost 100 cars lined up, and peo­ple shouted and honked, and a sta­tion employee said he had been spit on and had cof­fee thrown at him.

In a Brook­lyn neigh­bor­hood, a sta­tion had pumps wrapped in police tape and a “NO GAS” sign, but cars waited because of a rumor that gas was coming.

“I’ve been stranded here for five days,” said Stu­art Zager, who is from Brook­lyn and was try­ing to get to his place in Del­ray Beach, Fla. “I’m afraid to get on the Jer­sey Turn­pike. On half a tank, I’ll never make it.”

The worst was over at least for pub­lic trans­porta­tion. The Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North were run­ning com­muter trains again, though ser­vice was lim­ited. New Jer­sey Tran­sit had no rail ser­vice but most of its buses were back, and Amtrak was hop­ing to resume train ser­vice between New York and Boston for the first time since the storm hit.

The storm killed at least 90 peo­ple in the U.S. New York City raised its death toll on Thurs­day to 38, includ­ing two Staten Island boys, 2 and 4, swept from their mother’s arms by the floodwaters.

In New Jer­sey, many peo­ple were allowed back into their neigh­bor­hoods Thurs­day for the first time since Sandy rav­aged the coast­line. Some found minor dam­age, oth­ers total destruction.

The storm cut off bar­rier islands, smashed homes, wrecked board­walks and hurled amuse­ment park rides into the sea. Atlantic City, on a bar­rier island, remained under manda­tory evacuation.

More than 4.6 mil­lion homes and busi­nesses, includ­ing about 650,000 in New York and its north­ern sub­urbs, were still with­out power. Con­sol­i­dated Edi­son, the power com­pany serv­ing New York, said elec­tric­ity should be restored by Sat­ur­day to cus­tomers in Man­hat­tan and to homes and offices served by under­ground power lines in Brooklyn.

In dark­ened neigh­bor­hoods, peo­ple walked around with miner’s lamps on their fore­heads and bicy­cle lights clipped to shoul­der bags and, in at least one case, to a dog’s col­lar. A Man­hat­tan handy­man opened a fire hydrant so peo­ple could col­lect water to flush toilets.

“You can clearly tell at the office, or even walk­ing down the street, who has power and who doesn’t,” said Jor­dan Spiro, who lives in the black­out zone. “New York­ers may not be known as the friend­liest bunch, but take away their abil­ity to shower and com­mu­ni­cate and you’ll see how dis­grun­tled they can get.”

Some pub­lic offi­cials expressed exas­per­a­tion at the relief effort.

James Moli­naro, pres­i­dent of the bor­ough of Staten Island, sug­gested that peo­ple not donate money to the Amer­i­can Red Cross because the Red Cross “is nowhere to be found.”

“We have hun­dreds of peo­ple in shel­ters through­out Staten Island,” he said. “Many of them, when the shel­ters close, have nowhere to go because their homes are destroyed. These are not home­less peo­ple. They’re home­less now.”

Josh Lock­wood, the Red Cross’ regional chief exec­u­tive, said 10 trucks began arriv­ing to Staten Island on Thurs­day morn­ing and a kitchen was set up to dis­trib­ute meals. Lock­wood defended the agency, say­ing relief work­ers were stretched thin.

“We’re talk­ing about a dis­as­ter where we’ve had shel­ters set up from Vir­ginia to Indi­ana to the state Maine, so there’s just this tremen­dous response,” he said. “So I would say no one orga­ni­za­tion is going to be able to address the needs of all these folks by themselves.”

In Manhattan’s Chelsea neigh­bor­hood, Mary Wil­son, 75, was buy­ing water from a con­ve­nience store that was open but had no power. She said she had been with­out run­ning water or elec­tric­ity for three days, and lived on the 19th floor.

She walked down­stairs Thurs­day for the first time because she ran out of bot­tled water and felt she was going to faint. She said she met peo­ple on the stairs who helped her down.

“I did a lot of pray­ing: ‘Help me to get to the main floor.’ Now I’ve got to pray to get to the top,” she said. “I said, ‘I’ll go down today or they’ll find me dead.’”

Posted by AP News on Nov 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.