New York (CNN) -- Residents of the northeastern United States, still reeling from the havoc Sandy wreaked October 29 on the region, learned Wednesday that the same holds true for snow and wind, which buffeted the coast in the form of a nor'easter.
More than 600,000 households who have been without power since October 29 hunkered down for a long, cold night.
"While this storm is not as dangerous as Sandy was, New Yorkers should still take safety precautions today and tonight," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters Wednesday.
By 10 p.m., some four inches of snow had fallen on Staten Island, the borough of New York that was hard hit by Sandy. Parts of Connecticut saw more than eight inches.
"It's Mother Nature's one-two punch," Cory Baker, mayor of Newark, New Jersey, told CNN's "Piers Morgan." "It's testing the resolve and the grit of my state and my city and, obviously, this region."
Some 25,000 residents of Newark had still been without power from Sandy, he said. "Now, this is being dumped; it has the potential to knock out more power within my state."
Indeed, that is what happened. Power outages in New York and New Jersey rose from 607,000 during the day to 652,000 customers by 10 p.m.
Soon after, Elizabeth Flagler, a spokeswoman for the Long Island Power Authority, said the company had tallied 100,000 new power outages since the storm began, bringing its total to 193,000.
"We're getting hit pretty hard between the snow and the wind," she said.
Forecasters predicted gusts of up to 60 mph in shore towns and cities across New York and New Jersey, bringing 2- to 4-foot storm surges just as homes and office buildings had begun to dry out and floodwaters to recede after Sandy.
Coastal erosion caused by last week's storm sparked fears of more flooding in storm-battered communities, while incoming cold weather was expected to hamper utility restoration efforts across the region.
Storm victim: Trying to save what I own
Insurance concerns for Superstorm Sandy
A satellite view of Hurricane Sandy shows the storm at 10:15 a.m. ET on Friday, October 26. Though it was no longer considered a hurricane when it hit the U.S., "post-tropical" Superstorm Sandy packed a hurricane-sized punch.
Photos: Weather from space
Friends and members of the Puglia family sift through the remains of their missing home for valuables on November 6, 2012, after Hurricane Sandy hit Staten Island, New York. View photos of New York preparing for Sandy.
Photos: New York recovers from Sandy
Cold brings fresh misery to Sandy victims
Bloomberg urged residents in the city's low-lying areas -- especially Breezy Point, Hamilton Beach and Gerritsen Beach -- to "consider going someplace else tonight, to be a little bit on the safe side."
But he issued no mandatory evacuation orders, other than for a handful of chronic-care facilities and an adult-care center in areas that were hit hard by Sandy.
"If people think you're crying wolf, the next time, when it's really a serious threat, they might not do it," the mayor said.
That was not the case in New Jersey, where the Brick Township Office of Emergency Management had issued a mandatory evacuation order for all residents of low-lying waterfront areas of town.
Meanwhile, freezing temperatures ushered in snow and potentially deadly conditions for those without shelter, as displaced residents struggled to stay warm with generators and blankets. Others continued to camp with family and neighbors as they awaited the return of electricity.
On Tuesday night, about 8,500 Sandy victims had taken refuge in more than 100 Red Cross shelters. Temperatures were expected to dip again Wednesday night into the 20s, forecasters said.
Shelters were opened across the city for displaced residents or those without power.
"We think we're ready for anything," said Bloomberg, who ordered patrol officers to use their cruisers' loudspeakers to encourage elderly or homebound residents to go somewhere warm and safe and advised residents to check on neighbors.
Bloomberg tells struggling New Yorkers to get off the road
More than a week after Sandy struck the Northeast, its death toll in New York City climbed to 41 as a 78-year-old man died Tuesday of injuries suffered in the storm, police said.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo fired his chief of emergency management, Steven Kuhr, for having arranged for the Suffolk County Office of Emergency Management to clear a tree from his driveway, a Cuomo administration source told CNN.
CNN was not able to reach Kuhr.
The continuing recovery effort had already left thousands of area residents tired, homeless and looking for answers.
New York City's Penn Station was shut for a time on Wednesday evening because of overcrowding after the Long Island Railroad halted service systemwide, Metropolitan Transit Authority spokeswoman Marjorie Anders told CNN.
The stations reopened later in the evening and service resumed, she said.
As many as 20,000 households across New York City and Westchester County were not expected to be back online by the weekend because of damage to their homes' electrical systems, officials said.
Contractors will need to check the electrical wiring in each home and business to ensure that power can be safely restored, Bloomberg said. Salt-caked wiring could ignite once the power is restored.
On Long Island's hard-hit coast, towns such as Oceanside remained largely without power.
"The lights came on for three minutes here. Everybody cheered like A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez) hit one out at Yankee Stadium," said Rick Wolkenberg. "Then there was this weird hum and everything went out again. They teased us, and now we're sitting here in the dark again."
The 59-year-old mortgage lender said his staff has been working for days in his office by means of a small generator and flashlights.
"Everyone's really frazzled, angry," he said. "It's not just the power. Now it's getting an electrician to evaluate the house, then getting a plumber -- and nobody's coming because they're all overwhelmed."
His 81-year-old mother, Edith, moved in with his family after Sandy slammed through her home in Oceanside.
"There just seems so many obstacles now," Wolkenberg said.
"It is like a war zone down there," Gov. Chris Christie said, referring to places such as Ocean County's Mantoloking, where flooding and fires wiped out large sections of the town last week.
At least 20 homes burned to the ground there, mirroring an incident in Breezy Point, a Queens neighborhood where a cluster of more than 100 houses caught fire during the storm.
"We don't know what to expect for the flooding situation as the shorelines have been changed," Christie said. "For many of them, the dunes are gone. So, moderate flooding under normal conditions becomes major in these conditions."
More than three-fourths of New Jersey's school systems were operating Wednesday and 1,728 public schools were open in New York.
Elsewhere, there were signs of the region rebounding.
The PATH train between New Jersey and New York resumed limited service under the Hudson River on Tuesday, after being shut ahead of the storm.
Commuter traffic reopened Wednesday in the Holland Tunnel, where about 91,000 vehicles typically pass under the Hudson River between Manhattan and Jersey City, New Jersey.
Air travel continued to be affected. Authorities advised air travelers to check with their carriers ahead of the storm.
"Airlines serving the Port Authority's major airports -- Newark Liberty International, John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia -- have canceled all or a significant number of their flights beginning at noon today and continuing through early tomorrow," the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said Wednesday in a statement.
The storm that broke records -- and hearts
CNN's Kristen Hamill, Katia Hetter, Julia Talanova and Rob Frehse contributed to this report
Loading weather data ...
© 2013 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The storm is seen from from the International Space Station on October 26.
A satellite view shows Sandy's position at 2:47 p.m. ET on Saturday, October 27.
This satellite image shows Sandy at 2:22 p.m. ET on Monday, October 29.
A satellite image of the Western Hemisphere shows its massive size at 2:22 p.m. on Monday, October 29.
This satellite image shows Sandy at 2:59 p.m. ET on Monday, October 29.
Superstorm Sandy officially made landfall Monday evening along the coast of southern New Jersey, the National Hurricane Center reported. This image shows the storm at 7:40 p.m. ET.
The destruction caused by Superstorm Sandy mounted Tuesday morning as electrical fires and record power outages added to the misery of devastating flooding in the Northeast. This image shows the storm at 9:40 a.m. ET on Tuesday, October 30.
The Northeast Corridor slowly struggled back to life on Wednesday after the knockout punch from Superstorm Sandy. This image shows the storm at 9:10 a.m. ET on Wednesday, October 31.
Superstorm Sandy was just a low pressure area at 5 a.m. on Thursday, November 1.
The eastern U.S. was still coping with the aftermath of Sandy at 8 a.m. on Friday, November 2.
The Western Hemisphere was relatively calm on Sunday, November 4, at 12:45 a.m. ET.
This satellite image shows the storm at 11 a.m. on Monday, November 5.
This satellite image captured at 9:15 a.m. ET on Wednesday, November 7, shows the winter storm.
More than one week after Superstorm Sandy hit, the Northeast prepares for a nor'easter, a strong low pressure system with powerful northeasterly winds coming from the ocean ahead of a storm. This satellite image captured at 11:01 a.m. ET on Friday, November 9, shows the winter storm over the East Coast. See photos of the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.
A part of a house that floated off its foundation during the storm now sits in the middle of a coastal estuary in the Oakwood Beach area of Staten Island.
New York City police officers and a resident warm up in front of a fire in a blacked-out area of Oakwood Beach on Staten Island.
A woman looks through a sand covered parking lot used as a donation center on November 5 in the Rockaway neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City.
Volunteers who call themselves the Broad Channel Police Department help clean a neighbor's damaged house.
People wait in line for food at a distribution center at Coney Island.
A dump truck empties trash collected from homes damaged by Superstorm Sandy on Saturday, November 3, in the Midland Beach neighborhood of Staten Island, New York. New York is trying to clean up and resume normal activities days after the storm hit.
A volunteer places donated clothing in plastic bags to protect it from potential rain at a relief center on Saturday in Midland Beach.
A damaged chair sits on the beach in low-lying Coney Island on Saturday.
A man salvages a set of drums at Rockaway Beach in Queens, New York, on Saturday. Most of the Rockaway Peninsula remains without power.
People gather among debris from Superstorm Sandy and boxes of donated goods on Saturday in Rockaway Beach.
Boats that were swept aground during Sandy sit against homes near a marina on Staten Island on Friday, November 2.
Eddie Liu uses a broom to clean up mud and water from a flooded coin laundry in Coney Island on Friday.
Michelle Dumas hugs her daughter Olivia to warm her up as they wait in an hours-long line for gas at a station Friday on Staten Island.
Men try to clean up the destruction in a flooded deli in Brooklyn, New York, on Friday.
Members of the Traina family on Friday sort through photographs and other personal items from their Staten Island home that was destroyed by Superstorm Sandy.
In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, replacement power utility poles are transported along Old Country Road on Friday in Plainview, New York.
Abandoned and flooded cars are piled up on Friday, November 2, in the heavily damaged Rockaway neighborhood, in Queens, where a large section of a landmark boardwalk was washed away.
Food trucks and men selling bread and cheeses line Broadway at Union Square on Friday in New York as the city recovers from the effects of Superstorm Sandy.
Debris piles up near the foundations of the iconic boardwalk, which was washed away in the Rockaway neighborhood in Queens.
A man rides his bike through the heavily damaged Rockaway neighborhood.
Matthew Mark Meyer, left, and Annie Barwick, center, sit in a darkened Randolf Beer Restaurant which is using generator power to reopen on Friday in New York City.
People walk through the heavily damaged Rockaway neighborhood.
Commuters pack into a train on Thursday in New York City. Limited public transit has returned to the city, where 14 of 23 subway lines are running.
Commuters ride the subway. Public transit is operating in New York City, but travel times are long, up to five hours in some cases.
A police officer directs passengers waiting on Thursday to board city buses into Manhattan at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. About 4,000 buses are replacing the subway lines still closed by Superstorm Sandy damage.
Thousands of people wait to board city buses into Manhattan, and some subway lines remain underwater. Getting water out of the tunnels is "one of the main orders of business right now," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday.
A police officer directs traffic entering the Brooklyn Queens Expressway into Manhattan.
A police officer checks cars entering the Brooklyn Queens Expressway to confirm that they have three occupants before allowing them to cross into Manhattan on Thursday. Limited public transit has returned to New York, and most major bridges have reopened. However, vehicles must have three occupants to pass.
Parts of lower Manhattan are still without electricity on Thursday. Superstorm Sandy, which made landfall along the New Jersey shore on Monday, October 29, left much of the Eastern Seaboard without power, including much of Manhattan south of 34th Street.
Residents of New York City's East Village enjoy a bonfire on Wednesday, October 31.
East Village residents charge their phones with power from a generator on Wednesday.
Traffic snarls in New York City on Wednesday. Residents and businesses across the Eastern Seaboard are attempting to return to their daily lives in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.
A Caring Foundation worker hands out food to residents of the heavily damaged Rockaway section of Queens on Wednesday.
Water floods streets in the Rockaway section of Queens on Wednesday.
Traders stand outside of the New York Stock Exchange in New York on Wednesday. Stocks advanced as U.S. equity markets resumed trading for the first time this week after the storm.
A man surveys damage on Wednesday, October 31, in the Rockaway neighborhood of Queens, New York, where the historic boardwalk was washed away during Superstorm Sandy.
Residents walk with their belongings through the Rockaway section of Queens on Wednesday.
The remains of homes burned down in Rockaway are seen Wednesday, a day after an inferno spread across the flooded neighborhood.
Firefighters continued to survey the damage in Rockaway on Wednesday. At least 80 homes were destroyed.
People wait for buses on Sixth Avenue in New York on Wednesday as New Yorkers cope with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
People attempt to squish into a crowded bus on First Avenue in New York on Wednesday.
Con Edison crew members work on a steam pipe on First Avenue on Wednesday.
The foundations to the historic Rockaway boardwalk in Brooklyn are all that remain after it was washed away Wednesday during Hurricane Sandy.
People walk to work Wednesday on a normally busy street near the New York Stock Exchange.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday after it had been closed for two days.
Commuters arrive in Manhattan by ferry from Jersey City, New Jersey, on its first day back in business after Sandy.
CNN iReporter Jordan Shapiro captured this view of the Williamsburg Bridge in New York at 11 p.m. on Tuesday, October 30. Half of the bridge and Brooklyn is lit, while the Manhattan side and the surrounding part of the island remain shrouded in darkness.
A subway station and escalator sit underwater in New York on Tuesday.
Much of the New York City skyline sits in darkness Tuesday evening after damage from Superstorm Sandy knocked out power. About 6.9 million customers are without power in 15 states and the District of Columbia, according to figures compiled by CNN from power companies.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, center, views the damage Tuesday in the Breezy Point neighborhood of Queens, where a fire broke out during Superstorm Sandy and destroyed at least 80 homes.
A resident looks through the debris of his destroyed home in Breezy Point, Queens, on Tuesday.
Burned-out vehicles and destroyed homes line a street in Breezy Point, located on the western end of the Rockaway peninsula in New York.
A fire continues to burn Tuesday in the remains of a structure that was destroyed by the Breezy Point blaze.
A New York City man hands a dog to first responders while being evacuated on Tuesday.
A bartender at the International Bar in the East Village neighborhood of New York City makes drinks in the dark on Tuesday as electricity remains out for many in the city.
Water floods the Plaza Shops in New York, in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, on Tuesday, October 30.
Con Edison employees monitor the drainage of water being pumped out of Seven World Trade Center in the Financial District of New York on Tuesday.
Onlookers watch a construction crane dangling from a $1.5 billion luxury high-rise after collapsing in high winds.
The construction crane dangles from a high-rise in midtown Manhattan.
Ramiro Arcos clears debris from a storm drain in the Financial District of New York after Sandy swept through the city.
A couple walks in the rain Tuesday, with the East River and the Lower Manhattan skyline as a backdrop.
The Manhattan skyline remains dark after much of the city lost electricity in the storm.
Cars float in a flooded below-street-level parking area in the Financial District on Tuesday.
People take a Tuesday morning walk on the Brooklyn Bridge, which remains closed to traffic after the city awakened to the storm damage.
A car sits crushed by a tree in the Financial District on Tuesday. Photos: New York braces for Sandy.
|