Wednesday, October 31, 2012

New Yorkers won't be seeing life return to normal for at least several more days, but they've taken several big steps today toward recovery from Hurricane Sandy -- which is now linked to at least 62 deaths.

The stock market is back in business, two of the New York area's airports are seeing some flights come and go, and officials are planning to open some parts of the subway system tomorrow. Today, buses were the only mass transit available -- and they were crowded so heavily, they skipped stops and rolled past waiting passengers.

Large numbers of people walked across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan -- in a reverse of the exodus of 9/11.

Much of New York is still without power. At luxury hotels and drugstores, and at Starbucks shops, people have been gathering around outlets and electrical strips, desperate to recharge their phones. In all, more than six million homes and businesses are still in the dark in the aftermath of the storm -- about two thirds of them in New York and New Jersey.

In Hoboken, N.J., National Guardsmen in trucks have been delivering meals to residents trapped by floodwaters, and helping to evacuate people from high-rises and brownstones.

Some of the state's barrier islands, which took a direct hit from Sandy, remain nearly cut off.