As blackouts linger, Northeasterners try to adjust

Commuters cross New York's Brooklyn Bridge, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012. The floodwaters that poured into New York's deepest subway tunnels may pose the biggest obstacle to the city's recovery from the worst natural disaster in the transit system's 108-year history. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Early morning commuters cross New York's Brooklyn Bridge, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012. Morning rush-hour traffic appeared heavier than on an ordinary day as people started to return to work in a New York without functioning subways. Cars were bumper-to-bumper on several major highways. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

NEW YORK (AP) — Homes grew chilly without heat. Food spoiled in refrigerators. Televisions remained silent. And people everywhere scurried for a spot to charge their cellphones.

Two full days after Superstorm Sandy ripped through the Northeast, most Americans who lost power tried to make the best of a situation that was beyond their control while utilities struggled to restore electricity — a massive job they warned could last well into next week.

Sandy blacked out some of the nation's most densely populated cities and suburbs, instantly taking away modern conveniences from Virginia to Massachusetts and as far west as the Great Lakes.

For power companies, the scale of the destruction was unmatched — more widespread than any blizzard or ice storm and worse than the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"It's unprecedented: fallen trees, debris, the roads, water, snow. It's a little bit of everything," said Brian Wolff, senior vice president of the Edison Electric Institute, a group that lobbies for utilities.

Initially, about 60 million people were without power in 8.2 million homes and businesses. By Wednesday night, that number had fallen to roughly 44 million people in 6 million households and businesses.

Even as power slowly returned to some pockets, a new headache emerged: Backup batteries and generators running cellphone towers were running out of juice. One out of every five towers was down, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

That — plus more people relying on their cellphones to stay connected — overwhelmed the system in some areas, making it hard to place calls.

With many businesses and schools closed, people looked for ways to keep themselves entertained.

John Mazzeo, of Monroe, Conn., had a small generator that doesn't really provide him much power. But it was enough to keep his 7-year-old daughter occupied with a Christmas movie. Meals consisted of McDonald's and cereal.

In New York, Vildia Samaniego traveled four miles uptown to a bar, the Blarney Stone, to watch the Boston Celtics play the Miami Heat.

"I really needed to watch the basketball game," she laughed. "The place was packed. It's amazing how much you miss television."

Peter Nikac, a teacher who lives in Fairfield, Conn., took a more old-fashioned route: His family spent their time playing board games and sorting through photos.

"You get back to when we were young with no electronics," he said. "You realize you don't need a lot of that material. You get back to just doing simple things which is somewhat pleasing."

For others, the outage had graver consequences.

"I have several hundred dollars' worth of insulin in the refrigerator," said Joan Moore of New York's Staten Island, who is diabetic.

In Bellington, W. Va., Stephanie Hinkle and her 10- and 12-year-old kids waited with about a dozen other evacuees at a Red Cross shelter.

"No heat, no way to cook, no way to keep two small children warm. You have to do what you have to do to keep them safe," she said. Hinkle is unemployed and relies on government help to feed her kids, so she didn't have stockpiled food, water and other supplies.

For New Yorkers living in the vertical city, a loss of power means much more than spoiled cold cuts and frozen dinners. Electricity is needed to pump water to upper floors. Many New Yorkers prepared for the storm by stocking up on bottled water. But without power, there's no way to flush the toilet.

There were encouraging acts of kindness, gestures made by the lucky ones with electricity.

"I have power and hot water. If anyone needs a shower or to charge some gadgets or just wants to bask in the beauty of artificial light, hit me up," Rob Hart, who also lives on Staten Island, wrote on Facebook.

Not everybody was so neighborly.

Jake Tschudy was busy selling generators out of a truck parked on the side of a Rhode Island highway. He bought 70 of the Hyundai generators prior to the storm and was now asking $699 or $1,399 each, depending on the size. Tschudy wouldn't say how much he marked up the price.

"I do OK," he said. "It's not gouging."

Many suburban and rural neighborhoods lost power after Sandy's winds, which reached up to 90 mph, knocked trees and branches into overhead wires.

Sandy's massive storm surge — 14 feet of water that broke a record set in 1821 — also frustrated efforts to quickly restore power. In New York City and along the New Jersey and Connecticut coasts, flooding knocked out substations and switching yards, the vertebrae of the electric distribution system.

Far from the coasts, utilities dealt with a different problem: Snow piled onto trees that still had leaves, knocking branches and whole trees onto major transmission lines.

In many neighborhoods, power companies can't even tell which blocks are without electricity because they need to get regional substations online first. Only then can automated signals help pinpoint the damage.

Once they identify affected blocks, tree limbs need to be cut, new power lines need to be strung and blown transformers replaced.

"Until we get these major assets back in service, we don't have the ability to say: Oh gee, Mr. and Mrs. Smith's home is out of service because of a tree on their line," said Ralph A. LaRossa, chief operating officer of New Jersey utility PSE&G.

In all, 53,000 utility workers from as far away as Minnesota, New Mexico and California have come east to help.

The cleanup cost for utilities adds up fast. There's travel, food and labor costs for all those of out-of-state workers, plus overtime pay. Baltimore Gas & Electric set up a tent at the stadium where the Baltimore Ravens play to help feed and do laundry for the 4,000 workers who came to assist.

Homeowners and businesses are likely to get stuck with the cleanup bill — though not always and not right away. The process varies from state to state, but typically utilities ask regulators for permission to charge customers for the cleanup through rate increases.

If the storm was major and regulators conclude that utilities prepared and did a good job restoring power, they will allow small rate increases over a long period of time.

But utility regulators also have the power to force the companies and their shareholders to eat all or some of the costs.

Sometimes businesses opened, only to realize that might not be the best idea.

Wayne Edelman opened Meurice Garment Care on Wednesday in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, even though it didn't have power. A single employee took orders with a pen and pad. But when customers came to pick up their clothes, the employee couldn't find them on the store's conveyor belt. Rather than disappoint more customers, Edelman shut the store.

In Long Beach, on New York's Long Island, Rob Dimino, owner of a fast-food store called Pantano's was cleaning up flood damage from Sandy.

Dimino pointed to a line on the wall, 15 inches above the floor, and said that was how high the water had risen.

A dank odor mixed with the smell of rotting food lingered in the air. Dimino estimated he'd have to throw out thousands of dollars' worth of food. He said going without power for another week or two would be "crippling."

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Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Erika Niedowski in Charlestown, R.I.; Eileen A.J. Connelly, Leanne Italie and Joyce Rosenberg in New York; John Christoffersen in New Haven, Conn.; Michael Melia in Hartford, Conn.; Paul Harloff in Long Beach, N.Y.; Kevin Begos in Pittsburgh and Vicki Smith in Belington, W.Va.

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Scott Mayerowitz can be reached at http://twitter.com/GlobeTrotScott and Jonathan Fahey at http://twitter.com/JonathanFahey .

US region hit by Sandy slowly resumes daily life, but thousands still trapped in homes

NEW YORK, N.Y. - People along the battered U.S. East Coast slowly began reclaiming their daily routines Thursday, even as crews searched for victims and tens of thousands remained without power after superstorm Sandy claimed more than 70 lives.

The New York Stock Exchange came back to life, and two major New York airports reopened to begin the long process of moving stranded travellers around the world.

New York's three major airports were expected to be open Thursday morning with limited flights. Limited service on the subway, which suffered the worst damage in its 108-year history, would resume Thursday.

President Barack Obama landed in New Jersey on Wednesday, which was hardest hit by Monday's hurricane-driven storm, and he took a helicopter tour of the devastation with Gov. Chris Christie. "We're going to be here for the long haul," Obama told people at one emergency shelter.

For the first time since the storm pummeled the heavily populated Northeast, doing billions of dollars in damage, brilliant sunshine washed over New York City, for a while.

At the stock exchange, running on generator power, Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a thumbs-up and rang the opening bell to whoops from traders. Trading resumed after the first two-day weather shutdown since a blizzard in 1888.

It was clear that restoring the region to its ordinarily frenetic pace could take days — and that rebuilding the hardest-hit communities and the transportation networks could take considerably longer.

There were still only hints of the economic impact of the storm.

Forecasting firm IHS Global Insight predicted it would cause $20 billion in damage and $10 billion to $30 billion in lost business. Another firm, AIR Worldwide, estimated losses up to $15 billion.

About 6 million homes and businesses were still without power, mostly in New York and New Jersey. Electricity was out as far west as Wisconsin in the Midwest and as far south as the Carolinas.

In New Jersey, National Guard troops arrived in the heavily flooded city of Hoboken, just across the river from New York City, to help evacuate about 20,000 people still stuck in their homes and deliver ready-to-eat meals. Live wires dangled in floodwaters that Mayor Dawn Zimmer said were rapidly mixing with sewage.

Tempers flared. A man screamed at emergency officials in Hoboken about why food and water had not been delivered to residents just a few blocks away. The man, who would not give his name, said he blew up an air mattress to float over to a staging area.

As New York crept toward a semi-normal business day, morning rush-hour traffic was heavy as buses returned to the streets and bridges linking Manhattan to the rest of the world were open.

A huge line formed at the Empire State Building as the observation deck reopened.

Tourism returned, but the city's vast and aging infrastructure remained a huge challenge.

Power company Consolidated Edison said it could be the weekend before power is restored to Manhattan and Brooklyn, perhaps longer for other New York boroughs and the New York suburbs.

Amtrak said the amount of water in train tunnels under the Hudson and East rivers was unprecedented, but it said it planned to restore some service on Friday to and from New York City — its busiest corridor — and would give details Thursday.

In Connecticut, some residents of Fairfield returned home in kayaks and canoes to inspect widespread damage left by retreating floodwaters that kept other homeowners at bay.

"The uncertainty is the worst," said Jessica Levitt, who was told it could be a week before she can enter her house. "Even if we had damage, you just want to be able to do something. We can't even get started."

In New York, residents of the flooded beachfront neighbourhood of Breezy Point returned home to find fire had taken everything the water had not. A huge blaze destroyed perhaps 100 homes in the close-knit community where many had stayed behind despite being told to evacuate.

John Frawley, who lived about five houses from the fire's edge, said he spent the night terrified "not knowing if the fire was going to jump the boulevard and come up to my house."

"I stayed up all night," he said. "The screams. The fire. It was horrifying."

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Hit by crisis, Greek society in free-fall

In this Oct. 4, 2012, file photo, riot police clash with protesters inside Greece's Defense Ministry in Athens. Police clashed with scores of protesting shipyard workers after they forced their way into the grounds of Greece's Defense Ministry. The workers say they have not been paid in months. To the casual visitor, all might appear well in Athens, but scratch the surface and you find a society in freefall, ripped apart by the most vicious financial crisis the country has seen in half a century. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis, File)

In this Sept. 27, 2012, file photo, Anastasia Mouzakiti, center, a paraplegic, came to the demonstration from the northern city of Thessaloniki with her husband, to protest outside the Greek parliament. To the casual visitor, all might appear well in Athens, but scratch the surface and you find a society in freefall, ripped apart by the most vicious financial crisis the country has seen in half a century. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A sign taped to a wall in an Athenshospital appealed for civility from patients. "The doctors on duty have been unpaid since May," it read, "Please respect their work."

Patients and their relatives glanced up briefly and moved on, hardened to such messages of gloom. In a country where about 1,000 people lose their jobs each day, legions more are still employed but haven't seen a paycheck in months. What used to be an anomaly has become commonplace, and those who have jobs that pay on time consider themselves the exception to the rule.

To the casual observer, all might appear well in Athens. Traffic still hums by, restaurants and bars are open, people sip iced coffees at sunny sidewalk cafes. But scratch the surface and you find a society in free-fall, ripped apart by the most vicious financial crisis the country has seen in half a century.

It has been three years since Greece's government informed its fellow members in the 17-country group that uses the euro that its deficit was far higher than originally reported. It was the fuse that sparked financial turmoil still weighing heavily on eurozone countries. Countless rounds of negotiations ensued as European countries and the International Monetary Fund struggled to determine how best to put a lid on the crisis and stop it spreading.

The result: Greece had to introduce stringent austerity measures in return for two international rescue loan packages worth a total of €240 billion ($312.84 billion), slashing salaries and pensions and hiking taxes.

The reforms have been painful, and the country faces a sixth year of recession.

Life in Athens is often punctuated by demonstrations big and small, sometimes on a daily basis. Rows of shuttered shops stand between the restaurants that have managed to stay open. Vigilantes roam inner city neighborhoods, vowing to "clean up" what they claim the demoralized police have failed to do. Right-wing extremists beat migrants, anarchists beat the right-wing thugs and desperate local residents quietly cheer one side or the other as society grows increasingly polarized.

"Our society is on a razor's edge," Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias said recently, after striking shipyard workers broke into the grounds of the Defense Ministry. "If we can't contain ourselves, if we can't maintain our social cohesion, if we can't continue to act within the rules ... I fear we will end up being a jungle."

CRUMBLING LIVING STANDARDS

Vassilis Tsiknopoulos, runs a stall at Athens' central fish market and has been working since age 15. He used to make a tidy profit, he says, pausing to wrap red mullet in a paper cone for a customer. But families can't afford to spend much anymore, and many restaurants have shut down.

The 38-year-old fishmonger now barely breaks even.

"I start work at 2:30 a.m. and work 'till the afternoon, until about 4 p.m. Shouldn't I have something to show for that? There's no point in working just to cover my costs. ... Tell me, is this a life?"

The fish market's president, Spyros Korakis, says there has been a 70 percent drop in business over the past three years. Above the din of fish sellers shouting out prices and customers jostling for a better deal, Korakis explained how the days of big spenders were gone, with people buying ever smaller quantities and choosing cheaper fish.

Private businesses have closed down in the thousands. Unemployment stands at a record 25 percent, with more than half of Greece's young people out of work. Caught between plunging incomes and ever increasing taxes, families are finding it hard to make ends meet. Higher heating fuel prices have meant many apartment tenants have opted not to buy heating fuel this year. Instead, they'll make do with blankets, gas heaters and firewood to get through the winter. Lines at soup kitchens have grown longer.

At the end of the day, as the fish market gradually packed up, a beggar crawled around the stalls, picking up the fish discarded onto the floor and into the gutters.

"I've been here since 1968. My father, my grandfather ran this business," Korakis said. "We've never seen things so bad."

Tsiknopoulos' patience is running out.

"I'm thinking of shutting down," he said, "I think about it every day. That, and leaving Greece."

JUSTICE

On a recent morning in a crowded civil cases court in the northern city of Thessaloniki, frustration simmered. Plaintiffs, defendants and lawyers all waited for the inevitable — yet another postponement, yet another court date.

Greece's sclerotic justice system has been hit by a protracted strike that has left courts only functioning for an hour a day as judges and prosecutors protest salary cuts.

For Giorgos Vacharelis, it means his long quest for justice has grown longer. Vacharelis' younger brother was beaten to death in a fairground in 2003. The attacker was convicted of causing a fatal injury and jailed. The family felt the reasons behind the 24-year-old's death had never been fully explained, and filed a civil suit for damages. Nearly 10 years later, Vacharelis and his parents had hoped the case would finally be over.

But the court date they were given in late September got caught up the strike. Now they have a new date: Feb. 28, 2014.

"This means more costs for them, but above all more psychological damage because each time they go through the murder of their relative again," said Nikos Dialynas, the family's lawyer.

Vacharelis and his family are in despair.

"If a foreigner saw how the justice system works in Greece, he would say we're crazy," said the 35-year-old.

"Each time we come to court we get even more outraged," he said. "We see a theater of the absurd."

VIGILANTES

In September, gangs of men smashed immigrant street vendors' stalls at fairs and farmers' markets. Videos posted on the Internet showed the incident being carried out in the presence of lawmakers from the extreme right Golden Dawn party. Formerly a fringe group, Golden Dawn — which denies accusations it has carried out violent attacks against immigrants — made major inroads into mainstream politics. It won nearly 7 percent of the vote in June's election and 18 seats in the 300-member parliament. A recent opinion poll showed its support climbing to 12 percent.

Immigrant and human rights groups say there has been an alarming increase in violent attacks on migrants. Greece has been the EU's main gateway for hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants — and foreigners have fast become scapegoats for rising unemployment and crime.

While there are no official statistics, migrants tell of random beatings at the hands of thugs who stop to ask them where they are from, then attack them with wooden bats.

Assaults have been increasing since autumn 2010, said Spyros Rizakos, who heads Aitima, a human rights group focusing on refugees. Victims often avoid reporting beatings for fear of running afoul of the authorities if they are in the country illegally, while perpetrators are rarely caught or punished even if the attacks are reported.

"Haven't we learned anything from history? What we are seeing is a situation that is falling apart, the social fabric is falling apart," Rizakos said. "I'm very concerned about the situation in Greece. There are many desperate people ... All this creates an explosive cocktail."

In response to pressure for more security and a crackdown on illegal migration, the government launched a police sweep in Athens in early August. By late October, police had rounded up nearly 46,000 foreigners, of whom more than 3,600 were arrested for being in the country illegally.

Police say that in the first two months of the operation, there was also a 91 percent drop in the numbers of migrants entering the country illegally along the northeastern border with Turkey, with 1,338 migrants arrested in the border area compared to 14,724 arrested during the same two months in 2011.

HEALTHCARE

At a demonstration by the disabled in central Athens, tempers were rising.

Healthcare spending has been slashed as the country struggles to reduce its debt. Public hospitals complain of shortages of everything from gauzes to surgical equipment. Pharmacies regularly go on strike or refuse to fill subsidized social security prescriptions because government funds haven't paid them for the drugs already bought. Benefits have been slashed and hospital workers often go unpaid for months.

And it is the country's most vulnerable who suffer.

"When the pharmacies are closed and I can't get my insulin, which is my life for me, what do I do? ... How can we survive?" asked Voula Hasiotou, a member of an association of diabetics who turned out for the rally.

The disabled still receive benefits on a sliding scale according to the severity of their condition. But they are terrified they could face cuts, and are affected anyway by general spending cuts and the pharmacy problems.

"We are fighting hard to manage something, a dignified life," said Anastasia Mouzakiti, a paraplegic who came to the demonstration from the northern city of Thessaloniki with her husband, who is also handicapped.

With extra needs such as wheelchairs and home help for everyday tasks such as washing and dressing, many of Greece's disabled are struggling to make ends meet, Mouzakiti said.

"We need a wheelchair until we die. This wheelchair, if it breaks down, how do we pay for it? With what money?"

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Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki, Greece contributed to this story.

Hoboken, N.J., Residents Spend Another Night Out in the Cold in Flooded City

Thousands still stranded after brutal storm Tensions build in Hoboken, N.J., as a quarter of the city remains underwater and food supplies run short. 'It's scary'

As daylight faded in Hoboken, N.J., Wednesday, stranded residents prepared for another long, cold night.

With the power still out, the only lights that could be seen were those of fire trucks, ambulances and National Guard trucks. Flooded streets that might have been barely passable during the day now posed too many risks for drivers still hoping to reach family and friends in town.

Car after car came down the New York Avenue hill, only to stop and turn around at Observer Highway, with two to three feet of water an imposing obstacle.

Hurricane Sandy: Full Coverage

The situation, however, is improving in some parts of Hoboken. The floodwaters have receded in the past two days and continued to go down overnight, making some roads safe to drive on that only hours before had been unpassable.

With around 25 percent of this New Jersey city across the Hudson River from New York City now underwater, many of its 50,000 residents are without power, and four days after most stores shut down, residents are running low on food. In an apartment building at First and Harrison, residents grilled frozen pizza.

"It's scary. We don't have that much food. I mean, we prepared a little bit," one person said.

Around 10 p.m., a panicked Daniel Rosado managed to receive help from the National Guard to reach his two young cousins, ages 12 and 9, stuck in town.

It was his last hope of reaching them that night.

"My friends tried to help me out, they got stuck too," he said.

Although National Guard trucks drove door to door trying to assist people in need, the wait for some residents became agonizing. It could be seven to 10 days, residents said, before Hoboken has power again. The generators that so many are using for power only have so much gas on hand.

As Rosado pulled away in the back of the Army truck, a sign became visible across the street. "Welcome to Hoboken," it said, as floodwaters rose three feet at its base.