| Those who lost their homes during Hurricane Sandy are salvaging what they can from the wreckage, and trying to stay afloat financially as they cope with the aftermath of the storm. NBC's Ann Curry reports. By NBC News wire services NEW YORK -- New York drivers are waking up Friday to the first widespread gas rationing since the fuel crisis of the 1970s, as the Northeast struggles to recover from the devastation of Superstorm Sandy and a subsequent snowstorm. Police were set to be at gas stations to enforce the new system, which began at 5 a.m. in Long Island and at 6 a.m. in New York City. "This is designed to let everybody have a fair chance, so the lines aren't too oppressive and that we can get through this," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. After a difficult commute Thursday night that saw heavily armed police trying to quiet crowds at area bus and train stations, New Jersey authorities are adding free buses and ferries Friday to try and ease commutes that have been four and five times longer than normal all week. The nor'easter brought gusting winds, rain and snow on Wednesday and early Thursday before it moved on. Snow blanketed several states from New York to New England and stymied recovery efforts from Sandy as additional storm-weakened trees snapped and more power lines came down. Gas rationing Full coverage from NBCNewYork.com Bloomberg indicated that the city had little choice. "It now appears there will be shortages for possibly another couple weeks," Bloomberg said, later adding, "If you think about it, it's not any great imposition once you get used to it." Neighboring counties would implement a similar program, he said, in an effort to cut down lines that ran for hours at local filling stations following Sandy. The city's iconic yellow taxis are exempt from the new regulation. Officials said the gas rationing was imposed because something had to be done to ease the long waits for fuel, which they say has caused panic-buying and hoarding. Bloomberg said only a quarter of the city's gas stations were open. Some were closed because they were out of power, others because they have been unable to get fuel from terminals and storage tanks that cannot unload their cargoes. Full NBCNews.com coverage of Sandy's aftermath Gas will be available to drivers with license-plate numbers ending in an odd number or a letter on Friday. On Saturday, drivers with license plates that end in even numbers or zero can fuel up. Cleanup crews already overextended from Hurricane Sandy are working around the clock to clear snow that recently fell across the region, causing more people to lose power. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports. Buses, taxes and limousines, commercial vehicles and emergency vehicles are exempt from the plan, as are people carrying portable gas cans. Vanity plates that do not have numbers are considered odd-numbered plates. Out-of-state drivers are also subject to the system. CNBC: Why the gas shortage was so bad and so local New Yorkers, never known for holding their tongues, let their exasperation with the bad weather show. "Kick in the gas," the New York Post blared in a headline on its website, a day after its print newspaper hit the streets with the cover headline "God hates us!" Anger at utilities An angry New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo joined the calls for an investigation Thursday, ripping the utilities as unprepared and badly managed. "It's unacceptable the longer it goes on because the longer it goes on, people's suffering is worse," he said. View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com. Cuomo appears to be all by himself among the New York area's big three politicians. Bloomberg defended the city's power company, Consolidated Edison, and said it has done a good job in recent years. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie praised the utilities, saying he expects all of his state to have power back by early Sunday. Sandy kills parents: Student must raise 3 siblings The utilities have said they are dealing with damage unprecedented in its scope and are doing the best they can. There is no denying the magnitude of what they have done: At the peak, more than 8.5 million homes and businesses across 21 states lost power during Sandy. Early Friday, there were more than 288,000 outages in New York and about 273,000 in New Jersey. Some people have lived for days in the dark in temperatures near freezing.  / A snowstorm hits the Northeast as residents are still struggling to pick up the pieces after Superstorm Sandy. "We lost power last week, just got it back for a day or two, and now we lost it again," said John Monticello of Point Pleasant Beach, N.J. "Every day it's the same now: turn on the gas burner for heat. Instant coffee. Use the iPad to find out what's going on in the rest of the world." Are you left in the lurch after Sandy? 'Feels a lot like … a foreign country' New Jersey did not have a damage estimate of its own, but others have put Sandy's overall toll at up to $50 billion, making it the second most expensive storm in U.S. history, behind Hurricane Katrina, which swamped New Orleans in 2005. New York scrambles to make up for shuttered hospitals A week after Sandy, Doctors Without Borders established temporary emergency clinics in the hard-hit Rockaways -- a barrier island in Queens facing the Atlantic Ocean -- to tend to residents of high-rises, that still lacked power and heat and were left isolated by the storm. "I don't think any of us expected to see this level of lacking access to health care," said Lucy Doyle, who specializes in internal medicine at New York's Bellevue Hospital and has done stints with the group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kenya. "A lot of us have said, it feels a lot like being in the field in a foreign country." The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. More content from NBCNews.com:
 |
11/09/2012
Storm-stricken NYC wakes up to gas rationing
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment