America the brave gets back up

New York is recovering after superstorm Sandy carved a path of destruction from the Caribbean to Canada.

US President Barack Obama inspected the devastation from Sandy, flying high over flooded neighbourhoods, sand-strewn streets and a burning fire that charred homes along the New Jersey coastline.

Just six days before America goes to the polls, Mr Obama came to survey the damage in New Jersey, where tens of thousands of homes are under water and millions of families are without power.

His visit came as storm-battered New York got slowly back on its feet with Wall Street and the city's airports getting up and running after a powerful storm that left more than 50 Americans dead.

With election day less than a week away, Mr Obama's visit to view the aftermath of the rare autumn storm was layered with political implications.

His tour guide was New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican and top supporter of presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Mr Christie joined Mr Obama on a Marine One helicopter ride over the region.

US President Barack Obama is greeted by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as he arrives to view the massive destruction caused by Superstorm Sandy.

After the aerial tour, Mr Obama travelled to a community centre in Brigantine, northeast of Atlantic City, where about 50 people had taken shelter and other residents were visiting for food, a hot shower or to power up their cellphones.

After both men doled out hugs and handshakes at the shelter, Mr Christie said it's "really important to have the President of the United States" in New Jersey. To the chagrin of some Republicans, Mr Christie has lavished praise on Mr Obama for his efforts in helping states deal with the storm.

Mr Obama was equally effusive about Mr Christie, telling residents that "your Governor is working overtime" to repair the damage from the storm.

"The entire country has been watching what's been happening. Everybody knows how hard Jersey has been hit," Mr Obama said.

Shaggy is rescued by the National Guard after the dog and his owner left a flooded building in Hoboken, N.J. in the wake of superstorm Sandy. Picture: Craig Ruttle

Even though politics infuse every moment in the final week before election day, the White House sought to focus attention on the storm, an event that has given Mr Obama an opportunity to project presidential leadership in the final days of the tightly contested White House race.

During the helicopter tour, Mr Obama and Mr Christie saw a carnival and a large pier that had been damaged, along with flattened houses and fragments of wood scattered throughout neighbourhoods.

Parts of the New Jersey shore's famed boardwalk was missing in sections and in one area, a fire was still burning and appeared to have taken out about eight homes.

As Mr Obama and Mr Christie flew over Point Pleasant Beach, sand and water could be seen covering several blocks of the community. But the President got a reminder of next week's election: someone had written "ROMNEY" in large letters in the sand at the north end of the beach.

A resident walks past damage in the Rockaway neighbourhood of New York.

Wednesday marked Mr Obama's third straight day off the campaign trail. He cancelled rallies across four battleground states and retreated to the White House to oversee the government's storm response. Mr Obama stopped by FEMA headquarters in Washington before heading to New Jersey.

Mr Romney, who had also mostly suspended campaigning out of sensitivity to storm victims, was back stumping for voters, in Florida, on Wednesday, albeit on a muted level.

"Please, if you have an extra dollar or two, please, send them along and keep the people who have been in harm's way... in your thoughts and prayers," he told about 2000 people in a Florida airport hangar, as American Red Cross donation messages flashed on large video screens.

"We come together in times like this, and we want to make sure they have a speedy and quick recovery from their financial and, in many cases personal, loss," Mr Romney added.

A picture provided by the US Coast guard shows flooded homes in Tuckerton, New Jersey.

While Mr Romney rapidly shifted to his message that "it's time for America to take a different course," the challenger held off on direct attacks against Mr Obama as the president presided over storm duties in Washington.

Battered by superstorm Sandy, New Yorkers and millions of other Americans have taken the first cautious steps to reclaim their upended daily routines, even as rescuers comb neighbourhoods strewn with debris and scarred by floods and fire.

Two major airports reopened and the floor of the New York Stock Exchange came back to life, but across the river in New Jersey, the National Guard searched for flood victims and fires still raged two days after superstorm Sandy.

Buses were back on New York city streets and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that limited subway service would resume Thursday, despite many of the tunnels still being inundated by corrosive sea water.

Mr Cuomo said there would be "limited commuter rail service on Metro North and on the Long Island Railroad which will begin at 2pm today."

But large sections of New York, including many of the skyscrapers in lower Manhattan, remained without electricity, and schools throughout the city were shuttered for a third straight day.

However, for the first time since the storm battered the northeast, killing 59 people and doing billions of dollars in damage, brilliant sunshine washed over the nation's largest city - a striking sight after days of gray skies, rain and wind.

News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch pledged $1 million to aid in Sandy recovery, urging others to do the same.

A woman views still-smoldering damage in a neighbourhood in the Breezy Point area of Queens in New York on October 30, 2012 after fire destroyed about 80 homes as a result of Sandy.

"News Corp giving $1million to help families in NY and NJ badly hurt by Sandy. Hope other companies will do same," Mr Murdoch tweeted.

At the stock exchange, running on generator power, Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a thumbs-up and rang the opening bell to whoops from traders on the floor. Trading resumed after the first two-day weather shutdown since the Blizzard of 1888.

It was clear that restoring the region to its ordinarily frenetic pace could take days - and that rebuilding the hardest-hit communities and the transportation networks that link them together could take considerably longer.

"We will get through the days ahead by doing what we always do in tough times - by standing together, shoulder to shoulder, ready to help a neighbour, comfort a stranger and get the city we love back on its feet," Mr Bloomberg said.

This aerial photo shows burned-out homes in the Breezy Point section of the Queens, where more than 80 homes were destroyed.

The annual New York marathon was confirmed to be going ahead on Sunday after doubts about whether roads would be cleared in time and whether thinly stretched police would have sufficient resources. However, another Big Apple tradition, the Halloween Parade on Wednesday evening, was cancelled.

"I think some people said you shouldn't run the marathon," Mr Bloomberg said.

"There's an awful lot of small businesses that depend on these people. I think for those who were lost, you've got to believe they would want us to have an economy and have a city go on for those that they left behind."

Nearly two million customers had electricity restored, but another 6.2 million across 16 states remained without power, the Department of Energy said.

A woman looks at damage left behind in New York after Sandy hit.

The scale of the challenge could be seen across the Hudson River in New Jersey, where National Guard trucks rolled into heavily flooded Hoboken to deliver ready-to-eat meals and other supplies and to evacuate people from their condo high-rises, brownstones and other homes.

Live wires dangled in floodwaters that Mayor Dawn Zimmer said were rapidly mixing with sewage. The mayor of the city of 50,000 issued an appeal for people to bring boats to City Hall to help with the evacuation.

Natural gas fires raged Wednesday in a section of Brick Township, New Jersey, where dozens of houses were devastated by the storm's surge. No injuries were reported.

Mr Christie issued an order postponing Halloween trick-or-treating until Monday, saying floodwaters, downed electrical wires, power outages and fallen trees made it too dangerous for children to go out.

A man walks by the remains of part of the historic Rockaway boardwalk, after large parts of it were washed away during Sandy.

But, amid the despair, talk of recovery was already beginning.

"It's heartbreaking after being here 37 years," Barry Prezioso of Point Pleasant, New Jersey, said as he returned to his house in the beachfront community to survey the damage.

"You see your home demolished like this, it's tough. But nobody got hurt and the upstairs is still livable, so we can still live upstairs and clean this out. I'm sure there's people that had worse. I feel kind of lucky."

When Mr Christie stopped in Belmar, New Jersey, during a tour of the devastation, one woman wept openly and 42-year-old Walter Patrickis told him, "Governor, I lost everything."

Workers try to clear boats and debris from the New Jersey Transit Morgan draw bridge in South Amboy, New Jersey.

Mr Christie, who called the shore damage "unthinkable," said a full recovery would take months, at least, and it would likely be a week or more before power is restored to everyone who lost it.

"Now we've got a big task ahead of us that we have to do together. This is the kind of thing New Jerseyans are built for," he said.

By sundown, however, announcements from officials and scenes on the streets signaled that New York and nearby towns were edging toward a semblance of routine.

In one bit of good news, John F. Kennedy and Newark Liberty International airports reopened with limited service just after 7am local time Wednesday. New York's LaGuardia Airport remains closed.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, centre, rings the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange after it was closed for two days.

Amtrak also laid out plans to resume some runs in the northeast on Wednesday, with modified service between Newark, N.J., and points south.

Meanwhile, the city's health department warned that while the storm would have killed many of the city's rats, the stronger ones are thought to have fled the rising waters to emerge on the surface, The New York Times reports.

But even with the return of some transportation and plans to reopen schools and businesses, the damage and pain inflicted by Sandy continued to unfold, confirming the challenge posed by rebuilding.

In New Jersey, amusement rides that once crowned a pier in Seaside Heights were dumped into the ocean, some homes were smashed, and others were partially buried in sand.

On a National Guard truck, Ali LaPointe, of Hoboken, New Jersey, hands her daughter Eliza Skye LaPointe, 18-months-old, to Hoboken firefighters.

Outages in the state's two largest cities, Newark and Jersey City, left traffic signals dark, resulting in numerous accidents at intersections where police were not directing traffic.

In Connecticut, some residents of Fairfield returned home in kayaks and canoes to inspect widespread damage left by retreating floodwaters that kept other homeowners at bay.

"The uncertainty is the worst," said Jessica Levitt, who was told it could be a week before she can enter her house.

"Even if we had damage, you just want to be able to do something. We can't even get started."

A man takes a picture of the John B. Caddell, a tanker that washed up on the shore of Staten Island in New York during a storm surge caused by Hurricane Sandy.

The storm caused irreparable damage to homes in East Haven, Milford and other shore towns. Still, many were grateful the storm did not deliver a bigger blow, considering the havoc wrought in New York City and New Jersey.

"I feel like we are blessed," said Bertha Weismann, whose garage was flooded in Bridgeport. "It could have been worse."

And in New York, residents of the flooded beachfront neighbourhood of Breezy Point in Queens returned home to find fire had taken everything the water had not. A huge blaze destroyed perhaps 100 homes in the close-knit community where many had stayed behind despite being told to evacuate.

John Frawley, 57, acknowledged the mistake. Mr Frawley, who lived about five houses from the fire's edge, said he spent the night terrified "not knowing if the fire was going to jump the boulevard and come up to my house."

The darkened skyline of Manhattan after Hurricane Sandy. Floodwater led to explosions that disabled a power station during the storm, contributing to the outages.

"I stayed up all night," he said. "The screams. The fire. It was horrifying."

There were still only hints of the economic impact of the storm.

Forecasting firm IHS Global Insight predicted it will end up causing about $US20 billion ($19.3 billion) in damage and $US10 billion to $US30 billion in lost business. Another firm, AIR Worldwide, estimated losses up to $US15 billion - big numbers probably offset by reconstruction and repairs that will contribute to longer-term growth.

"The biggest problem is not the first few days but the coming months," said Alan Rubin, an expert in natural disaster recovery.

Some of those who lost homes and businesses to Sandy were promising to return and rebuild, but many sounded chastened by their encounter with nature's fury.

They included Tom Shalvey of Warwick, Rhode Island, whose 152-square-metre cottage on the beach in South Kingstown was washed away by raging surf, leaving a utility pipe as the only marker of where it once sat.

"We love the beach. We had many great times here," Mr Shalvey said. "We will be back. But it will not be on the front row."

Three US nuclear power reactors remained shut and a fourth on alert, after storm waters wreaked havoc with transmission networks and cooling systems, but authorities insisted there were no risks to the public.

Inland, Sandy dumped 90 centimetres of snow on high ground in Appalachian states as she headed west and north, spreading blizzard conditions over parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

The National Weather Service said Sandy had weakened but that additional snowfall of up to 10 centimeters was expected in the mountains of West Virginia, far western Maryland and southwest Pennsylvania.

Jersey Shore stars show support for Sandy victims

Click here to see a selection of pictures showing yesterday's incredible storm.

Click here to see our gallery of the shocking aftermath.

And here is a selection of the best images from social media.

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