| Millions across the Northeast stricken by massive storm Sandy will attempt to resume their normal lives on Wednesday as Wall Street, airports and businesses 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. "Tomorrow recovery begins. Today was a day of sorrow," Christie told a news conference late Tuesday. "There's nothing wrong with that. So long as sorrow doesn't replace resilience, we'll be just fine." Video: Christie: New Jersey destruction 'unthinkable'Sandy, which has killed at least 46 people in the United States and 68 in the Caribbean, pushed inland, dumping several feet of snow in the Appalachian Mountains -- nearly 30 inches was recorded in Red House, Md. -- and was headed into Canada Wednesday. BreakingNews.com's coverage of Sandy The National Weather Service said its maximum sustained winds were "near 40 mph" but warned of higher gusts in its latest advisory notice at 11 p.m. ET Tuesday. The western extreme of Sandy's wind field generated gusts of up to 60 mph on the southern end of Lake Michigan and up to 35 mph in Chicago, the weather service said. Video: Where Sandy is headed next, what to expect (on this page)Flood warnings were in place in for the Great Lakes and other parts of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast states, with blizzard and winter storm warnings for parts of the Central Appalachians, southwest Pennsylvania, western Maryland, eastern Tennessee, eastern Kentucky and western North Carolina. Sandy caused waves up to two-stories high in the Great Lakes Tuesday, forcing massive cargo ships -- some longer than three football fields – to seek shelter. "We don't stop for thunderstorms and flurries," said Glen Nekvasil, spokesman for the Lake Carriers' Association, which represents U.S.-flagged cargo ships on the Great Lakes. "The lakes don't have to be perfectly flat. It has to be a significant weather event for ships to go to anchor or stay in port. But this was just too much." Video: Sandy victims reflect on disaster (on this page)In a measure of how big the storm was, high winds spinning off the edge of Sandy clobbered the Cleveland area Tuesday, uprooting trees, cutting power to hundreds of thousands, and flooding major roads along Lake Erie. And gusts topping 60 mph prompted officials to close the port of Portland, Maine, and scared away several cruise ships. Sandy leaves trail of destruction, disbelief in its path 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. Slideshow: Sandy slams into East Coast (on this page)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. Officials with New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority said they would release a timetable of their recovery plans sometime on Wednesday. Sandy leaves NYC subway system, infrastructure licking its wounds Officials planned to reopen financial markets on Wednesday and on Broadway, most shows "will go on," Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of The Broadway League, said in a statement on its website. "For those theatregoers who are staying in hotels and can't get home, it's a great time to see a show," she said, while stressing that "the safety and security of theatregoers and employees is everyone's primary concern." Video: Sandy disruptive, destructive for many across US (on this page)Two of the area's three major airports -- John F. Kennedy International in New York and Newark Liberty International -- planned to reopen with limited service on Wednesday. New York's LaGuardia Airport was flooded and remained closed. Nearly 19,000 flights have been canceled since Sunday, according to flight tracking service FlightAware.com. Sandy forced New York City to postpone its traditional Halloween parade, which had been set for Wednesday night in Greenwich Village. Sunday's New York Marathon is still on, but weather.com pointed out that "flying in runners from out of town will be tricky, and there may not be a subway to get everyone to the starting line." In New Jersey, Christie took a helicopter tour of the Jersey shore on Tuesday and saw boats adrift, boardwalks washed away, roads blocked by massive sand drifts and other destruction. He stopped in the badly damaged resort towns of Belmar and Avalon. "I was just here walking this place this summer, and the fact that most of it is gone is just incredible," he said at one stop. Christie said it could be seven to 10 days before power is restored statewide. He also said residents could not yet return to homes on the shore's battered barrier islands. Video: New Jersey's devastated landscape (on this page)Thousands of residents of Hoboken, N.J., just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, were stranded in their homes due to flooding, the mayor said. Dawn Zimmer, mayor of Hoboken, said half the city remained flooded Tuesday night. "We have, probably, about 20,000 people that still remain in their homes, and we're trying to put together an evacuation plan, get the equipment here," Zimmer told MSNBC TV. More content from NBCNews.com:
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10/31/2012
'Recovery begins' as Sandy heads north
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