NYC Dark in Wake of Hurricane Sandy; Regional Damage Being Assessed

(Newsroom America) -- Millions of people in and around New York City were without power Tuesday morning in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, as local officials said it could be as much as 10 days before power was restored to all areas.

Flooding occurred throughout scores of city neighborhoods and boroughs, and about 50 flooded homes in Queens caught fire and were destroyed, city officials said.

Usually bustling, busy streets and sidewalks were largely empty as the sun rose over a heavily damaged city. High above midtown the broken, battered boom of a crane hung precariously over one neighborhood, reports said.

Sandy combined with two other cold fronts to become a monster storm that produced several inches of rainfall and snow across a wide swath of the U.S. Northeast.

"We knew that this was going to be a very dangerous storm, and the storm has met our expectations," said NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "This is a once-in-a-long-time storm."

In New Jersey, meanwhile, the town of Moonachie - located in the state's northern sector - was swept over by a swell of water, trapping scores of people in their houses and atop mobile homes and setting in motion a huge rescue effort.

No injuries or deaths have yet been reported in the town of 2,700, located about 10 miles northwest of Manhattan.

In Connecticut, Gov. Dannel Malloy warned residents who failed to heed earlier evacuation warnings to move out of flooded areas to the highest point possible for rescue.

"This is a rather Katrina-like warning that we are issuing to people who did not take the advice that was given to them earlier in this crisis," Malloy told reporters at a news conference Monday night.

The reference invoked visions of residents in New Orleans who were stranded in their homes following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Many of them had to be rescued by helicopters.

"As of approximately 8:00, it was evident that our worst fears were being reached as a result of flooding conditions," Malloy said.

"It is also equally clear that even when people received those warnings that some of our citizens did not heed them and so we are now in a situation where we really need to talk directly and have talked directly to the cities and to our citizenry and have them get this message in any way that they can: if you are in a house that is inundated, get to a higher floor," he said. "If your house is surrounded by water, your best and safest option right now is to remain in that house and move to a higher level of the house."

Con Edison, the power company serving New York, New Jersey and surrounding areas said it could take 7 to 10 days to restore all power.

"This is the largest storm-related outage in our history,” said Con Edison Senior Vice President for Electric Operations John Miksad.

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