Housing, voting, power: Problems abound post-Sandy

NEW YORK (AP) — From trying to figure out where people would live to how they would be able to vote and when all the lights will finally come on, government officials are still facing multiple fronts in the efforts to recover fromSuperstorm Sandy. All that, and there's another storm coming.

Where to house potentially tens of thousands of people left homeless by the storm is the most pressing crisis, as cold weather sets in.

"It's not going to be a simple task. It's going to be one of the most complicated and long-term recovery efforts in U.S. history," said Mark Merritt, president of Witt Associates, a Washington crisis management consulting firm founded by former Federal Emergency Management Agency director James Lee Witt.

FEMA said it has already dispensed close to $200 million in emergency housing assistance and has put 34,000 people in New York and New Jersey up in hotels and motels. But local, state and federal officials have yet to lay out a specific, comprehensive plan for finding them long-term places to live. And given the scarcity and high cost of housing there and the lack of open space, it could prove a monumental undertaking.

Sandy killed more 100 people in 10 states but vented the worst of its fury on New Jerseyand New York. A week after the storm slammed the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, more than 1 million homes and businesses remained without power.

Another storm — a nor'easter packing heavy rain and gusts of 50 to 60 mph — was headed for the area Wednesday, threatening more flooding and power outages that could undo some of the repairs made in the past few days.

With the temperatures dropping into the 30s overnight, people in dark, unheated homes were urged to go to overnight shelters or daytime warming centers.

Because so many people have been displaced by the storm, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomoissued an executive order allowing people to vote in Tuesday's statewide and presidential elections at any polling place in the state. New Jersey had already taken similar measures.

"Just because you are displaced doesn't mean you are disenfranchised," Cuomo said. "Compared to what we have had to deal with in the past week, this will be a walk in the park when it comes to voting."

As for long-term housing for the homeless, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Monday that the government is looking into using everything from hotels and motels to FEMA trailers and prefab homes.

"Given the extent of need, no option is off the table," she said. "All of them will have some place in this puzzle."

Officials have yet to even establish the magnitude of the problem.

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday that officials are going door-to-door in hard-hit areas to assess the need for shelter. He said the worst-case estimate is 40,000 people, half of them in public housing.

But he said as many as 20,000 will probably get their heat and power back within a few days. Ultimately, the number of people who need longer-term housing could be under 10,000, he said.

In New Jersey, state officials said they are still trying to figure out how many people will need long-term housing. At least 4,000 residents were in New Jersey shelters.

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Where will housing be found for Sandy's victims? Authorities grapple with monumental problem

Government leaders are turning their attention to the next crisis unfolding in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy: finding housing for potentially tens of thousands of people left homeless.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it has already dispensed close to $200 million in emergency housing assistance and has put 34,000 people in the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area up in hotels and motels.

But local, state and federal officials have yet to lay out a specific, comprehensive plan for finding them long-term places to live, even as cold weather sets in. And given the scarcity and high cost of housing in the metropolitan area and the lack of open space, it could prove a monumental undertaking.

For example, can enough vacant apartments be found? Will the task involve huge, Hurricane Katrina-style encampments of trailer homes? And if so, where will authorities put the trailers? In stadiums? Parks?

Authorities cannot answers those questions yet.

"It's not going to be a simple task. It's going to be one of the most complicated and long-term recovery efforts in U.S. history," said Mark Merritt, president of Witt Associates, a Washington crisis management consulting firm founded by former FEMA director James Lee Witt.

Tactics that FEMA used in other disasters could be difficult to apply in the city. For example, Merritt said, it's impossible to set up trailers in people's driveways if everyone lives in an apartment building, and it's harder to find space to set up mobile homes.

Sandy killed more 100 people in 10 states but vented the worst of its fury on New Jerseyand New York. A week after the storm slammed the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, 1.4 million homes and businesses remained in the dark.

Another storm — a nor'easter packing heavy rain and gusts of 50 to 60 mph — was headed for the metropolitan area Wednesday, threatening more flooding and power outages that could undo some of the repairs made in the past few days.

With the temperatures dropping into the 30s overnight, people in dark, unheated homes were urged to go to overnight shelters or daytime warming centres.

Because so many voters have been displaced by the storm, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomoissued an executive order allowing people to vote in Tuesday's statewide and presidential elections at any polling place in the state.

"Just because you are displaced doesn't mean you are disenfranchised," Cuomo said. "Compared to what we have had to deal with in the past week, this will be a walk in the park when it comes to voting."

As for long-term housing for the homeless, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Monday that the government is looking into using everything from hotels and motels toFEMA trailers and prefab homes.

"Given the extent of need, no option is off the table," she said. "All of them will have some place in this puzzle."

Napolitano said the government's first priority is getting people to a warm place where they can eat a hot meal. Beyond that, the government wants to find housing as close to people's homes as possible.

"Whether we'll be able to accomplish that, I couldn't say," she said. "We're just now getting a handle on housing."

Officials have yet to even establish the magnitude of the problem.

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday that officials are going door-to-door in hard-hit areas to assess the need for shelter. He said the worst-case estimate is 40,000 people, half of them in public housing.

But he said as many as 20,000 will probably get their heat and power back within a few days. Ultimately, the number of people who need housing could be under 10,000, he said.

In New Jersey, state officials said they are still trying to figure out how many people will need long-term housing. At least 4,000 residents were in New Jersey shelters.

In the meantime, Bloomberg appointed Brad Gair, an emergency management specialist, as chief of housing recovery operations, with responsibility for overseeing the city's efforts to find shelter for those left homeless by the storm.

At a news conference, the mayor asked for patience after reporters pressed Gair for more specifics on how he intended to deal with the problem. Bloomberg pointed out that Gair had been on the job for only four hours.

"I want to assure everyone that every New Yorker who needs a warm place to live and a roof over his or her head is going to have one," Bloomberg said.

In the New York City borough of Staten Island, blue-jacketed FEMA volunteers knocked on doors in a devastated neighbourhood, making sure everyone was registered to apply for aid.

Amin and Rachael Alhadad and their four children have been sleeping sitting up in their Jeep. They were supposed to finally meet with FEMA workers on Monday afternoon.

"We're homeless right now and it just keeps getting worse every day," Amin Alhadad said. "We can't shower, we can't use the bathroom, we can't sleep properly. We're struggling right now. I'm losing my job right now due to this."

Alhadad said FEMA told him the government would deposit $2,900 in his account for a hotel, but it has yet to show up. He planned to make some phone calls to see if there were any hotel rooms available. His kids do not want to go to a shelter.

"I'm all out of ideas. I'm dazed and confused," he said.

Relief agencies have been conferring with real estate agents in hard-hit areas like Belle Harbor in the Rockaways section of New York City but have found only a few vacancies, said Yisroel Schulman, president of the New York City Legal Assistance Group. And even if people can find apartments, FEMA payments for temporary housing may fall short in a city known for its expensive housing.

"In the short term, the government is completely ill-prepared," Schulman said.

It's unclear what plans the city, state and federal government had before the storm to deal with a housing crisis of this magnitude. But in 2007, the city Office of Emergency Management held a design competition for post-disaster housing if a Category 3 hurricane smashed the city and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

The winning ideas included building a six-story complex mounted on ship hulls; using debris to create provisional housing; and turning shipping containers into living quarters.

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Syrian chaos deepens as rebels, Palestinians fight

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BEIRUT (AP) — New chaos engulfed Syria's civil war as Palestinian supporters and opponents of the embattled regime were swept up Monday in intense fighting in Damascus, while rival rebel groups clashed over control of a Turkish border crossing.

The rare infighting — accompanied by car bombs, airstrikes and artillery shells that killed or maimed dozens of people — heightened fears that if Syrian President Bashar Assad falls, the disparate factions battling the regime will turn on each other.

A suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden car near an army checkpoint in Hama province, killing 50 soldiers in one of the deadliest single attacks targeting pro-Assad troops in the 19-month uprising, according to activists. Eleven civilians died when a bomb exploded in a central Damascus neighborhood, state media said, and activists reported at least 20 rebels killed in air raid on the northern town of Harem.

"It's the worst-case scenario many feared in Syria," said Fawaz Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics. "It's an all-out war."

The fighting in the capital of Damascus was some of the worst since July, when rebels took over several neighborhoods, only to be bombed out by regime forces days later. Shortly after those battles, rebels moved on Syria's largest city, Aleppo, and it has become a major front in the civil war since then.

The attacks on the two main cities have demonstrated new organization and capabilities of rebel forces as well as a determination to press their uprising despite the deaths of more than 36,000 people in almost 20 months of fighting.

When Syria's unrest began in March 2011, the country's half-million Palestinians struggled to stay on the sidelines. But in recent months, many Palestinians started supporting the uprising although they insisted the opposition to the regime should be peaceful.

One faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, led by Ahmed Jibril, has remained loyal to Assad.

The popular committees in the Damascus-area Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, which are led by the PFLP-GC, said the fighting started Sunday when residents were attacked by gangs who claimed to include Palestinians fighting the government.

"The mercenaries who claim to have Palestinians among them" tried to infiltrate the camp but were repulsed by the popular committees, the statement said Monday. When the rebel attack failed, they fired mortars that killed and wounded several people, it added.

Video of the Yarmouk fighting that was posted online by activists Monday showed destruction around the camp, with shell-pocked and scorched vehicles, and shattered windows in apartment buildings as residents picked through debris and shouted in disbelief. The video was consistent with Associated Press reporting on the fighting in the area.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Britain-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, had no word on casualties from fighting that continued Monday. He said eight people were killed in Yarmouk on Sunday night when several mortar rounds landed in the camp.

"Those who are shelling the camp are terrorists" seeking to displace the Palestinians again, PFLP-GC spokesman Anwar Raja told the AP in Damascus.

Syrian authorities blame the uprising on a foreign plot, accusing Gulf countries Saudi Arabia and Qatar, along with the U.S., other Western nations and Turkey, of funding and training the rebels, whom they describe as "terrorists."

The Observatory said the fighting in Damascus was concentrated in the outskirts of the camp and the southern neighborhood of Tadamon. Damascus-based activist Abu Qais al-Shami told the AP via Skype that the fighting began Sunday night and went on continuously into Monday.

The Observatory and al-Shami said Syrian forces are backed by the PFLP-GC.

"Tadamon is being struck with shells, rockets and heavy machine-gun fire," al-Shami said. "People are fleeing the area toward safer areas inside the Yarmouk camp."

A Syrian opposition figure, who asked not to be identified out of fear of reprisal, said Palestinian fighters who are opposed to Assad were fighting alongside the rebels in Damascus.

The fighting came as the main Syrian opposition bloc broadened its ranks to include more activists, political groups from inside the country and those fighting on the front lines, responding to international calls for a more representative and cohesive leadership that could work with the West.

In northern Syria, an opposition figure said rival rebel groups clashed Sunday for control of the Bab al-Salameh border crossing with Turkey. The crossing has been in the hands of rebels since July. The opposition figure spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of retaliation.

He said the fighting was between the Northern Storm Brigade and the Amr bin al-Aas brigade, which has a large number of Islamic radicals.

There are dozens of opposition groups and rebel brigades fighting in the civil war. Rivalries are common, although violent clashes are unusual.

A Turkish government official based in the border town of Kilis confirmed two Syrian rebel groups were "engaged in a power struggle," fighting each other for control of the Bab el-Salameh border crossing. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government rules, said Turkish officials were still trying to determine who the two groups were.

A bomb exploded in the upscale Mazzeh al-Jabal district in central Damascus, killing 11 people and wounding dozens, according to the state-run news agency SANA. It was the first attack in a neighborhood in the capital that is predominantly populated by Alawites, an offshoot Shiite group that the Assad family belongs to. The blast caused widespread panic and massive damage in residential buildings. TV footage showed bloodied people in the street and gaping holes in residential buildings as firefighters worked to put out the blaze.

Residents said senior security and military officers of Assad's regime live in the area targeted late Monday. Gunfire was heard all over Mazzeh following the explosion, and warplanes flew over the stricken area as ambulances took the wounded to a nearby hospital, residents said.

In Hama, SANA said a suicide attack killed two civilians. But the Observatory, which relies on accounts from activists on the ground, said about 50 soldiers died when a suicide bomber detonated his car in the village of Ziyara, targeting an army checkpoint. The Observatory said the bomber belonged to Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaida-inspired militant group that has been fighting alongside rebel groups in some areas.

There was no comment from the government, which rarely reports regime casualties. If confirmed, the attack would be one of the deadliest for the troops since the uprising began.

Fighting and attacks elsewhere in Syria included air raids, shelling and clashes in the northern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib near the Turkish border to Deir el-Zour region in the east and Homs in the center.

In the northern town of Kfar Nobol, the Observatory said an air raid killed and wounded a number of people. An amateur video posted online by activists showed cars and shops on fire. A man was seen running carrying a dead body. The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting on the events depicted.

On the diplomatic front, the U.N.-Arab League envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, told reporters in Cairo that the communique from a meeting of key nations and international organizations in Geneva that agreed on a cease-fire and guidelines for a Syrian-led political transition should be turned into a Security Council resolution, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said Monday.

Brahimi encouraged the deeply divided council to continue talks to reach such a resolution, Nesirky said.

He spoke after a meeting Monday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who opposed the idea. Russia and China have vetoed three Western-backed resolutions aimed at pressuring Syrian President Bashar Assad's government to stop the violence, including by threatening sanctions.

The Security Council is scheduled to discuss Syria behind closed doors Tuesday and many diplomats had hoped for a briefing by Brahimi. But diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions were private, said Brahimi opted out and the council will now be briefed by U.N. political chief Jeffrey Feltman.

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Prosecutors allege 5 women in general's sex crimes

Bombings rock Damascus, brother of parliament speaker killed

A crowd gathers in front of a building and car damaged after a bomb explosion in the Mezzeh 86 area in Damascus, in this handout photograph released by Syria's national news agency SANA, November 5, 2012. EUTERS/Sana

JEDDAH/AMMAN (Reuters) - Bombs exploded in three districts of the Syrian capital Damascus on Tuesday, killing and wounding dozens, and gunmen shot dead the brother of the parliament speaker in the latest rebel attack on a figure associated with the ruling elite.

The opposition said at least 100 more people were killed elsewhere in the civil war, and Britain suggested offeringPresident Bashar al-Assad immunity from prosecution as a way of persuading him to leave power.

"Anything, anything, to get that man out of the country and to have a safe transition in Syria," British Prime Minister David Cameron told Al Arabiya news network in Abu Dhabi before flying on to Saudi Arabia.

Syrian state media said at least 10 people were killed and 30 wounded by an explosion in the Hai al-Wuroud district in the northwest of the capital.

The hilltop neighborhood is situated near a barracks and housing for elite army units, and is home to members of Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Syria's rebellion in is drawn mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority.

Opposition activists said three explosions were heard in Hai al-Wuroud and at least 15 people killed. A car bomb also detonated near a shopping mall in the mixed neighborhood of Ibn al-Nafis, killing and injuring several people, they said.

On Tuesday evening, activists reported another car bombing, this time near a mosque in the Sunni working-class district of al-Qadam in south Damascus, causing dozens more casualties. Buildings were damaged and bodies buried under debris that clogged the streets, the activists told Reuters.

"Lots of people were hit inside their apartments. Rescue efforts are hampered because electricity was cut off right after the explosion," said Abu Hamza al-Shami.

"There is a state hospital nearby but we are afraid to take the wounded there because they could be liquidated."

Bomb attacks along sectarian lines have escalated in the 19-month-old anti-Assad uprising. Last month several bombs went off during the Muslim Eid holiday near mosques in Sunni districts and the Damascus suburbs, killing and injuring dozens.

ATTACKS ON TOP OFFICIALS INCREASE

Officials and their families are increasingly being targeted by assassins as violence spreads in the capital. Victims have included parliamentarians, ruling Baath party officials, and even actors and doctors seen as Assad supporters.

State television said gunmen had assassinated Mohammed Osama al-Laham, brother of the speaker of parliament, in Damascus's Midan district. No group claimed immediate responsibility.

Peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned that Syria, where some 32,000 people have died in the upheaval, could end up a collapsed state like Somalia, prey to warlords and militias.

Opposition factions were meeting in Qatar in an effort to forge a common front. The opposition has remained divided between Islamists and secularists, civilians and armed fighters, and between exiles and those working inside the country.

More than 100 people were killed across the country on Tuesday, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition body based in Britain that compiles activist reports.

Air strikes killed 17 people, including women and children, in the Damascus suburb of Kfar Batna, it said. Video footage of the raid's aftermath posted on the Internet, which could not be verified, showed a toddler with a severed head and the torso of a young man, his head and limbs gathered near him by rescuers.

Insurgents killed 12 soldiers and wounded 20 in an attack on a convoy of off-road vehicles in the northern province of Idlib.

Air strikes and artillery barrages unleashed by the Syrian military in the last few weeks have wrecked whole districts of the capital, as well as parts of towns and cities elsewhere.

Yet, for all their firepower, Assad's forces seem no closer to crushing their lightly armed opponents, who in turn have so far proved unable to topple the Syrian leader.

EXIT PLAN

"Of course I would favor him facing the full force of international law and justice for what he's done," Cameron said of Assad. "I am certainly not offering him an exit plan to Britain. But if he wants to leave he could leave; that could be arranged."

It was unclear if Cameron had spoken to other U.N. Security Council members about the idea - which could involve offering Assad immunity from prosecution if he accepted asylum in a third country. Nor was it clear what country would take him.

The U.N. human rights office has said Syrian officials suspected of committing or ordering crimes against humanity should face prosecution at the International Criminal Court. U.N. investigators have been gathering evidence of atrocities committed by rebels as well as by Assad loyalists.

The United Nations has put Syria's government on a "list of shame" of countries that abuse children, saying Assad loyalists have killed, maimed, tortured and detained children as young as nine. Leila Zerrougui, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, told Reuters on Tuesday the body was also investigating the opposition.

"We have received information that the opposition also violates children by using them in bombings, and by bombing areas where there are children," she said.

Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria, told the London-based al-Hayat newspaper he did not expect ethnic or sectarian partition there. "What I am afraid of is worse ... the collapse of the state and that Syria turns into a new Somalia."

Russia and China have blocked three Western-backed U.N. Security Council draft resolutions against Assad. At the United Nations, diplomats quoted a senior U.N. official as telling the Security Council that Brahimi had urged Russia to be "more pro-active" in resolving the Syrian crisis.

U.N. political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman also told the closed-door meeting of the council that he had credible reports of government forces using cluster bombs, the envoys said.

Human rights groups have reported in the past that Syria used cluster munitions. Such weapons, which spread bomblets that explode over an area, are banned by most countries. But Syria - like the United States, Russia and China - has not signed up to the treaty outlawing them. Human rights groups view their use in areas populated by civilians to be a war crime.

OPPOSITION DISUNITY

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged the Syrian opposition to enter talks with the authorities to end the crisis and abandon a precondition that Assad step down.

"The most important thing is stopping the violence immediately. If it is more important to the other side to change the Assad regime, then they want to continue the bloodbath in Syria," Lavrov said in Amman after meeting former Syrian Prime Minister Riad Hijab, who defected to Jordan in August.

Hijab said Assad's removal was "the only way out".

Assad's foes have failed to unite, making it harder for the outside world to support or arm them.

Prominent dissident Riad Seif has proposed a new 50-member unity council. But the head of the widely criticized Syrian National Council (SNC), which is based abroad, said it should retain a "central role" in any opposition configuration.

A Doha-based diplomat said SNC members feared their group risked losing influence in the new civilian body, which would later choose an interim government and coordinate with armed rebel groups. Seif's initiative is to be debated on Thursday at the opposition meeting in Qatar.

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Oliver Holmes in Beirut, Rania el-Gamal and Regan Doherty in Qatar, Emad Omar in Cairo and Louis Charbonneau in New York; Writing by Peter Graff and Alistair Lyon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)