New York City and much of the U.S. Northeast on Thursday dug out from a snowstorm that hammered a region struggling to recover from the devastation of superstorm Sandy, as local governments expanded gasoline rationing in the face of shortages that may last for weeks.
The unseasonably early winter storm dumped more than 30 centimetres of snow on parts of 91原创icut on Wednesday and battered the region with 80 kilometre-an-hour winds, plunging 300,000 homes and businesses back into darkness. Rides aboard crowded trains were made more uncomfortable by the bulky coats, hats and scarves freezing commuters had to wear.
Bitter cold, rain, snow and powerful winds added to the misery of disaster victims whose homes were destroyed or power was knocked out by Sandy. The storm came ashore on Oct. 29 and caused widespread flooding, leading up to as much as $50 billion in economic losses.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it was preparing to bring in mobile homes to house those displaced by the storm, a reminder of the scramble after hurricane Katrina seven years ago to tend to the newly homeless. Some evacuees will be put up as far as 320 kilometres from home, FEMA said, because there is little available space closer to the city.
The snowstorm also created another commuting nightmare for a region whose transportation system was already under repair.
Train service was again spotty and crowded Thursday night; the Long Island Rail Road appealed to people to travel later in the evening for their own sake. People coming out of the Newport PATH station in New Jersey had to negotiate busy rush-hour traffic without traffic lights, so one enterprising man took it on himself to direct cars.
They were lucky to even get there, though.
Confusion reigned at Penn Station, where heavily armed police guarded track entrances, and the Port Authority bus terminal in midtown Manhattan, where officers yelled into crowds of people whose normal 30-to-45-minute commutes stretched well past two hours each way this week.
Kim Chan said she would give her line to Maplewood another 10 minutes before heading to her mother's house in the city for the night. "I'm not going to see my daughter until maybe when the trains are fixed," said Chan, who works for a dance company. "I'm not sure living in New Jersey is worth the effort."
With drivers still struggling to find adequate fuel, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city would begin an indefinite program of gas rationing, modelled on one New Jersey implemented last week.
Bloomberg indicated that the city had little choice. One gas station in Brooklyn had an hour-long line Thursday just for government workers, while another along the busy Belt Parkway in Queens had a two-hour line for just one working pump. After he announced the rationing plan, a gas line snaked for blocks through Manhattan's Soho neighbourhood.
"It now appears there will be shortages for possibly another couple [of] weeks," Bloomberg said, later adding, "If you think about it, it's not any great imposition once you get used to it."
Neighbouring counties would implement a similar program, he said, in an effort to cut down lines that ran for hours at local filling stations following Sandy. The city's iconic yellow taxis are exempt from the new regulation, which allows drivers to fill up on alternating days depending on their licence-plate number.
New Yorkers, never known for holding their tongues, let their exasperation with the bad weather show.
"God hates us!" the New York Post said in a front-page headline. Eight to 15 cm of snow fell on the city.
