Business resumes after Hurricane Sandy hits U.S Northeast.

 
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Millions across the U.S. Northeast stricken by massive storm Sandy will attempt to resume their normal lives on Wednesday as companies, markets and airports reopen despite grim projections of power and mass transit outages around New York for several more days.


With six days to go before the November 6 elections, President Barack Obama will visit flood-ravaged areas of the New Jersey shore, where the storm of historic proportions made landfall on Monday. As his guide, he will have Republican Governor Chris Christie, a vocal backer of presidential challenger Mitt Romney who has nevertheless praised Obama and the federal response to the storm.
Leaders at all levels had immense amounts of work to do to bring a semblance of normality back to the densely populated Eastern Seaboard.
Sandy, which killed 40 people in the United States, pushed inland by dumping several feet of snow in the Appalachian Mountains, more than 8.2 million homes and businesses remained without electricity across several states as trees toppled by fierce winds tore down power lines.
Subway tracks and commuter tunnels under New York City, which carry several million people a day, were under several feet of water. The lower half of Manhattan remained without power after a transformer explosion at a Con Edison substation Monday night.
Hit with a record storm surge of nearly 14 feet of water, New York City likely will struggle without subways for days, authorities said. Buses were operating on a limited basis and many residents were walking long distances or scrambling to grab scarce taxi cabs on the streets.
Assessing the damage, officials with New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority said they would release a timetable of their recovery plans sometime on Wednesday.
Despite much of the city’s financial district being damaged by flooding, officials planned to reopen financial markets on Wednesday as well. How much activity could take place remained to be seen, however, as many workers may be unlikely to get to work without subways and commuter railroads from the suburbs.