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UPDATE: 3:45pm EST

At least 12 New Yorkers were killed during Hurricane Sandy and that toll is expected to rise as  two little boys, ages 2 and 4, were listed as missing nearly 24 hours after they got separated from their mother after her car was submerged on Father Capodanno Blvd. on Staten Island.

As reported by the New York Daily News:

 -The off-duty officer, whose name was not released, got his relatives to the attic of their home on the southern end of Staten Island, but he didn’t make it to higher ground.

“Somehow he got trapped in his basement and he drowned in the basement,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

-In Richmond Hill, Queens, a 23-year-old woman taking cellphone photos of a power line that had caught fire suffered a horrific death after she stepped on a live wire on the sidewalk and fell to the ground, screaming.

-In Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, a teacher and a friend were crushed by giant trees that came crashing down on the street of stately Victorian homes at the height of the storm on Monday night.
Jessie Streich-Kest, 25, and her pal were discovered the next morning on Ditmas Ave. and E. 19th St. 

– At 92 Laight Street in Tribeca, a middle-aged parking garage worker was killed when he got trapped in the basement by flash flooding.

– The body of a 55-year-old man was found in an empty retail space at 90 Broad St. in lower Manhattan on Tuesday morning. Police said it appears he was carried into the building by a four-foot-deep river of water that smashed the glass front of the building.

– Cops asked to check on a family on Fox Beach Ave. on Staten Island discovered a father and son dead.

– A 13-year-old girl was found dead on a street in the Tottenville section of Staten Island where four beachfront homes were washed away. Her mother, a church worker, was critically injured and her father, a plumber, was missing, neighbors said.

– In Flushing, Queens, a tree crashed into a house on 166th St. and killed St. John’s University grad student Anthony Laino.

– An elderly woman was found at 164-25 98th St. in Queens. The cause of death was unknown.

– A 75-year-old woman was found in cardiac arrest at 444 Second Ave. near 26th St. about 10:30 p.m. Monday. She died but other details were unavailable

– Two deaths were reported on Long Island. John Miller, 39, a father of two was killed while standing near his car outside his Lloyd Harbor home, waiting to evacuate, police said. Safar Shafinoori, 84, of Roslyn was killed by a falling tree. A Garden City man blew off his hand when he lit a firework that he mistook for a candle.

-At least three people were killed in northern New Jersey: a man and a woman whose pickup truck was hit by a tree in Mendham Township and a 77-year-old man whose home was struck by a tree.

SOURCE: NYDN

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UPDATE: 12:45pm EST

Con Edison said that residents in Brooklyn and Manhattan should have power back withn 4 days while all others in areas served by overhead lines will take at least a week.

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UPDATE: 12:30pm EST

According to NY Governor Andrew Cuomo, most NYC area bridges are reopening now. And the MTA has limited Bus service which will resume at 5pm and all fares will be waived. For more info, click over to  transportationnation.org

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Hurricane Sandy came and went leaving a nothing but floods, fires, power outages and pure destruction in its path as parts of New York City are still in the dark.

STORY: Hurricane Sandy Superstorm Shuts Down East Coast!

A fire destroyed at least 50 houses overnight in Queens’ flooded Rockaway peninsula and forced the rescue of about 25 people from an upstairs apartment.

The meat of the storm smashed ashore late Monday near Atlantic City in New Jersey as New York City was perfectly positioned to absorb the worst of its storm surge – a record 13 feet.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg told New Yorkers-

“We knew that this was going to be a very dangerous storm, and the storm has met our expectations…This is a once-in-a-long-time storm.”

With much of NYC without power, a backup generator failed at New York University’s Tisch Hospital in the Kips Bay section of the city. The hospital had to evacuate more than 200 patients to other facilities, including 20 babies from neonatal intensive care, some of them on respirators operating on battery power.

As reported by the Associated Press:

Without power, the hospital had no elevator service, meaning patients had to be carefully carried down staircases and outside into the weather. Gusts of wind blew their blankets as nurses held IVs and other equipment.

About 670,000 homes and businesses were without power late Monday in the city and suburban Westchester County.

But according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo nearly 2 million people are without power across the state of New York, the total number came to 1,943,572.

The facade of a four-story Manhattan building in the Chelsea neighborhood crumbled and collapsed suddenly, leaving the lights, couches, cabinets and desks inside visible from the street. No one was hurt, although some of the falling debris hit a car.

And, before the brunt of the storm and the power outages came, a crane atop a luxury building in midtown Manhatthan began dangling yesterday afternoon. The 90-story building at 57th and 7th which is under construction, has been evacuated. The FDNY and other emergency responders will evaluate the crane today. The NYPD has shut down streets in the area, so motorists should expect traffic delays.

The city was in full shut-down mode, all three of its airports, subways, schools, Broadway theaters and even the New York Stock Exchange were closed. All bridges and tunnels were closed Monday as the weather worsened. By evening, a record 13-foot storm surge was threatening Manhattan’s southern tip and ConEd deliberately shut down electricity in part of the borough to avoid storm damage.

According to ConEd, it could be several days to a week before all residents who lost power during the storm get their lights back.

Late Monday, an explosion at a substation at 14th Street and FDR Drive contributed to the power outages. No one was injured, and ConEd did not know whether the explosion was caused by flooding or by flying debris.

As for casualities, the storm killed three people in the area by falling trees.

The storm had killed one New York City resident by Monday night, a man who died when a tree fell on his home in Queens. On Long Island, falling trees also killed a 39-year-old man in Lloyd Harbor and an 84-year-old man in Roslyn. 

As for the destruction in the wake of Sandy, President Barack Obama has declared a major disaster in New York City and Long Island.

Below, watch as Firefighters used a boat to rescue 25 people from a huge fire in Queens, New York on Monday. At least five buildings were burning on the heavily flooded street. 


SOURCE: AP