UPDATE: 3:10pm EST
Mayor Bloomberg announced today that all NYC schools will be closed to students Thursday and Friday, although teachers and administrators must report to work on Friday.
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UPDATE: 1:04pm EST
The MTA recently released a video showing the damage Hurricane Sandy caused to the South Ferry and Whitehall St Station. In the video we see an over flowing of water that has taken over NYC’s subway system.
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UPDATE: 11:30am EST
Limited subway and commuter rail service will return to New York tomorrow morning, but full restoration is still days away, MTA sources told The Post.
Gov. Cuomo is expected to reveal early this afternoon how subway, Metro North and Long Island Railroad trains will begin rolling again.
The MTA tweeted that 14 of the system’s 23 lines would be restored Thursday.
SOURCE: NYPost
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Safety is the main concern for many New Yorkers as they are faced with the prospect of days without power as six million people are still in the dark.
STORY: Hurricane Sandy Leaves The East Coast Flooded & Dark!
The city and its residents are taking precautions as apartment building superintendents suddenly became guards. In Coney Island, about 100 police officers stood on corners or cruised in cars to guard a strip of vandalized stores and a damaged bank, to the relief of shaken residents.
The precautions came on a second powerless night after the city was battered by Hurricane Sandy on Monday night and residents grappled with how long it would take to get back to normal – or at least New York’s version of normal.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said officials warned that power might not be back until the weekend for hundreds of thousands of people:
“Clearly, the challenges our city faces in the coming days are enormous.”
While some bus service resumed and some bridges reopened at midday, transit officials said they couldn’t predict when the subway would run again after suffering the worst damage in its 108-year history, they speculate that the subway won’t be up and running until the weekend, if then.
As reported by the Associated Press:
Schools were shut for a second day and were closed Wednesday, too. The New York Stock Exchange was closed for a second day, the first time that has happened because of weather since the 19th century, but planned to reopen Wednesday, with Bloomberg ringing the opening bell.
Problems to high-voltage systems caused by the storm forced the utility to cut power Tuesday night to about 160,000 additional customers in Brooklyn and Staten Island.
Consolidated Edison, the power company, estimated it would be four days before the last of the 323,000 customers in Manhattan and Brooklyn who lost power have electricity again. For the Bronx, Queens, Staten Island and Westchester County, with more than 450,000 outages, it could take a week.
Nationally, President Barack Obama is set to visit the most ravaged parts of New Jersey with Governor Chris Christie today.
As for the aftermath of Sandy, it could cost $20 billion in property damages and $10 billion to $30 billion more in lost businesses, according to IHS Global Insight, a forecasting firm.
It will be a long road to recovery for many in the Tri-State area as they are trying their best to get back a sense of normalcy after the superstorm.
And, good news for air travelers as JFK and Newark airports are set to reopen today!
SOURCE: AP
