Nor'easter leaves behind power outages, heavy snow

• Superstorm Sandy knocked out power to many on the East Coast
• The nor'easter added snow to the mix of bad weather
• Gasoline rationing begins today in New York City

The nor'easter that brought new woes to recovery efforts from Superstorm Sandy began moving off the New England coast at mid-morning Thursday, leaving behind new power outages, transport snarls and school cancellations from a night of high winds and heavy snow, including a record 4.7 inches in New York City's Central Park.

Meteorologist Frank Nocera said temperatures over the next couple of days will be in the 50s in southern New England, and on Sunday it could edge into the 60s.

Packing gusts as high as 54 miles per hour, the storm dumped significant amounts of snow in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York as it rolled through the tri-state area hit by Sandy early last week.

Clintonville, Conn., measured 13.5 inches of snow, the highest so far from the storm, AccuWeather reported. Freehold, N.J., followed with 13 inches, and Bronxville, N.Y., got 9.5 inches.

The 4.7 inches that draped Central Park overnight was 1.7 inches more than it has ever gotten this early in the winter since record-keeping began in 1869, AccuWeather reported.

Elsewhere in the tri-state region, downed tree limbs and overhead electrical lines triggered new power disruptions just as the area utilities was restoring thousands outages caused by Sandy.

Consolidated Edison reported 11,000 new outages late Wednesday, raising the total for New York City and the Westchester County northern suburb to 75,000.

"God hates us!" the New York Post's front page complained Thursday over the weather one-two punch.

New Yorkers are still recovering from the first punch. Friday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and officials on Long Island

decided to start rationing gasoline.

Gasoline will be available to drivers with license plate numbers ending in an
odd number starting Friday morning. Drivers with plate numbers ending in an even number can gas up on Saturday.
Bloomberg said Thursday that only 25% f the city's gas stations are
open. He estimated the tight gas supplies could last another two weeks.

In New Jersey, the new storm also added a layer of frustration for coastal residents and property owners still trying to clean up from Sandy's coastal devastation.

Work crews lined up to cross the bridge onto the Seaside Heights, N.J., barrier island while plow trucks cleared the roads of snow.

Billy Major, who owns an amusement park in Seaside Heights and a construction company, said his workers had been waiting in line at the bridge since 6 a.m., but had gotten no information from state and local officials as to when they could get back to work.

"I'm paying them to stand in line," Major said in frustration. "If they're not allowed in in a couple of hours, I'm sending them home."

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Airports in New York City and New Jersey, meanwhile, reported delays of 15 minutes or less Thursday morning while winter weather and flood warnings were dropped as the nor'easter lumbered away.

But not before the snow and wind at times shut down the Long Island Rail Road and its Penn Station terminus in Manhattan during Wednesday night's rush hour and again into the night.

The shutdown stranded riders at closed stations far from home. Although the New York City subway system was running near normal on Sandy-modified routes, the LIRR warned of weather-related delays and cancellations Thursday morning.

"Can New York please get a break. Have no idea how I'm getting to school," one LIRR rider tweeted late Wednesday night.

But the storm also canceled or forced delayed openings for scores of schools, forcing parents to change work schedules already scrambled by last week's storm.

Under ordinary circumstances, a storm of this sort wouldn't be a big deal. But large swaths of the landscape were still an open wound, with the electrical system highly fragile and many of Sandy's victims still mucking out their homes and cars and shivering in the deepening cold. As the storm picked up in intensity Wednesday evening, lights started flickering off again.

Mark L. Fendrick, of Staten Island, shared his frustration with others on Twitter Wednesday night, saying, "My son had just got his power back 2 days ago now along comes this nor'easter and it's out again."

Ahead of the storm, public works crews in New Jersey built up dunes to protect the stripped and battered coast, and new evacuations were ordered in a number of communities already emptied by Sandy. New shelters opened.

Not everybody hunkered down.

Katie Wilford left her Brick Township home near Barnegat Bay as the nor'easter approached. She bundled her sons Nick, 14, and Matthew, 10, into the minivan in search of an open motel.

"It's a little overwhelming," she said. "I can't believe we're doing this again. We're going on Day 10 with no power. That's a long time. I just want the sun to come out and things to be normal again."

In New York City, police went to low-lying neighborhoods with loudspeakers, urging residents to leave. But Mayor Bloomberg didn't issue mandatory evacuations, and many people stayed behind, some because they feared looting, others because they figured whatever happens couldn't be any worse than what they have gone through already.

"I'm staying," said 61-year-old Staten Islander Iliay Bardash. "Nothing can compare to what happened Still, authorities urged caution. The city manager in Long Beach, N.Y., urged the roughly 21,000 people who ignored previous mandatory evacuation orders in the badly damaged barrier-island city to get out.

All construction in New York City was halted — a precaution that needed no explanation after a crane collapsed last week in Sandy's high winds and dangled menacingly over the streets of Manhattan. Parks were closed because of the danger of falling trees. Drivers were advised to stay off the road after 5 p.m. and part of the busy Long Island Expressway was shut down in both directions because of icing.

Sandy, which struck less than two days ago, killed more than 100 people in 10 states, with most of the victims in New York and New Jersey. Long lines persisted at gas stations but were shorter than they were days ago. By early Thursday, more than 292,700 homes and business in New York state were without power, and another 403,000 in New Jersey lacked electricity. In some areas, the numbers began climbing again Wednesday evening.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said damages and economic losses from Sandy were estimated to be $50 billion in the New York-New Jersey region, and $33 billion for New York alone. "That is a staggering cost," he said.

Contributing: Gary Strauss in McLean, Va., Oren Dorell, in Toms River, N.J.; The Associated Press