At least 16 people are reported killed by storm Sandy in the US and Canada.
New York City looks like the set of a disaster movie this morning after a night of being battered by Superstorm Sandy.
It hit the mainland at 6.30pm local time last night having laid waste to large parts of the coast during the day. The US city shut its mass transit system, schools, the stock exchange and Broadway, and ordered hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to leave home to get out of the way as Sandy zeroed in.
A 13ft wall of water caused by the storm surge and high tides resulted in severe flooding to subways and road tunnels. Torrents of water poured into building works at Ground Zero, cars were swept down streets and power was cut across lower Manhattan in a bid to minimise damage to infrastructure.
Superstorm Sandy knocked out power to at least 6.2million people across the US East, and large sections of Manhattan were plunged into darkness by the storm, with 250,000 customers without power as water pressed into the island from three sides, flooding rail yards, subway tracks, tunnels and roads.
New York City's 911 dispatchers were receiving 20,000 calls per hour. An extraordinary 24 hours saw what was originally classed as a hurricane close in and converge with a cold-weather system that turned it into a superstorm - a monstrous hybrid consisting not only of rain and high wind, but also snow.
Sandy smacked the boarded-up big cities of the Northeast corridor, from Washington and Baltimore to Philadelphia, New York and Boston, with stinging rain and gusts of 85mph. Sixteen deaths were reported in New Jersey, New York, Maryland, North Carolina, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
Seven New York City subway tunnels were flooded by the morning. At least five deaths were reported in New York. Some of the victims were killed by falling trees and at least one death was blamed on the storm in Canada.
Firefighters used inflatable orange boats to rescue the utility workers trapped for three hours. One of the Con Ed workers pulled from the floodwater, Angelo Amato, said he was part of a crew who had offered to work through the storm. 'This is what happens when you volunteer,' he said.
About 670,000 customers were without power late Monday in New York City and suburban Westchester County.
Meanwhile a New Jersey nuclear plant is on alert as flood waters threaten the cooling of its spent uranium fuel rods. Exelon said that a further rise in water levels could force operators at its Oyster Creek power plant to use emergency water supplies from a fire hose to cool the spent rods.
The unprecedented flooding was hampering efforts to fight a massive fire in one of the city's barrier island neighborhoods, Breezy Point in the borough of Queens, the New York Fire Department said. More than 170 firefighters battled a fire that destroyed more than 50 homes.
Wall Street is expected to remain closed today, while the United Nations cancelled all meetings at its New York headquarters. It will be the first time the New York Stock Exchange will be closed for two consecutive days due to weather since 1888, when a blizzard struck the city.
Meanwhile, a group of elite New York City firefighters rescued dozens of people trapped in burning houses, with floodwater beneath them and a raging inferno above.
The fierce winds and flooding in the Rockaways, Queens, meant fire engines could get nowhere near the cluster of burning apartments as the blaze spread rapidly. Instead, the firefighters waded into chest-deep water and paddled boats into the flames, reported WABC.
They used ladders to scale walls and helped carry 70 people to the little high ground that was left on the peninsula.
Residents in New York City spent much of yesterday trying to salvage normal routines, jogging and snapping pictures of the water while officials warned the worst of the storm had not hit. Water lapped over the seawall in Battery Park City, flooding rail yards, subway tracks, tunnels and roads.
By yesterday evening, a record 13ft storm surge was threatening Manhattan's southern tip, howling winds had left a crane hanging from a high-rise block, and utilities deliberately darkened part of downtown Manhattan to avoid storm damage.
Rescue workers floated bright orange rafts down flooded downtown streets, while police officers rolled slowly down the street with loudspeakers telling people to go home.
Mayor Bloomberg said last night that the surge was expected to recede by midnight, after exceeding an original expectation of 11ft.
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