Nor'easter may bring 50 mph winds to Sandy-hit areas

Thousands of runners who planned to participate in the canceled New York City Marathon pitched in across the city, helping to distribute supplies to hard-hit neighborhoods. NBC's Mara Schiavocampo reports. Allison Joyce / Getty Images Residents of Rockaway, N.Y., stay warm by a fire during near-freezing temperatures on Sunday. TODAY's Al Roker takes a look at a slow-moving storm set to hit the Northeast this week, bringing coastal wind gusts up to 55 mph, 2-4 inches of rain and dumping heavy snow in the mountains. By NBC News staff and wire reports Updated at 12:30 p.m. ET: NEW YORK -- A week after Superstorm Sandy ravaged the New Jersey and New York coastlines, another challenged loomed Monday for the region: a slow-moving Nor'easter, capable of delivering punishing amounts of wind, rain and snowfall. "Though this storm will not have near the magnitude of the impact Sandy had, the combination of rain, wind and snow will add insult to injury for the recovery process along the East Coast," The Weather Channel's Chris Dolce reported. Starting in Florida Tuesday morning, the storm will gradually move up the East Coast and into the Carolinas late in the day, NBC TODAY show Chief Meteorologist Al Roker said. By Wednesday morning, the storm will move into the New Jersey coastline with strong onshore wind gusts of more than 50 miles per hour and waves measuring 10 to 20 feet high. The storm could bring 2 to 4 inches of rainfall in the area as it makes its way into the New England area Thursday. Full coverage of Sandy's aftermath "Normally we wouldn't worry about it, but this is a potentially dangerous storm only because when we're talking about tides of four to five feet when you have almost no beaches and no dunes, that could be big problems all along the areas already affected by Sandy, and it may bring some more power lines down," Roker said. Behind the rain will be more cold air, Roker said, which means there is the potential for heavy amounts of snow in the White and Green Mountains in New England all the way back down to areas in West Virginia. While close to 2 million people remained without power Monday, life was expected to return slowly to normal for many in the region ahead of the nor'easter. Still, yet another roadblock: commuters, public school students and motorists – forced out of their own vehicles by fuel shortages – will converge on transit systems not fully ready for them. Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters he expected to take the subway to work on Monday. He will be joined by many of the students returning to class in the nation's largest school system. About 90 percent of the 1,700 schools will reopen for the first time since Sandy hit last Monday, the mayor said. Lucas Jackson / Reuters Local residents salvage food from bags thrown out of a flooded store on Coney Island on Sunday. The good news in New York City was that, unlike last week, service on key subway lines connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn under the East River had been restored. But officials warned that other water-logged tunnels still were not ready for Monday's rush hour and that fewer-than-normal trains were running — a recipe for a difficult commute. "Service will not be normal tomorrow, and we need you to understand that before you enter the system," Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned Sunday. Want to help the recovery? Here's how Last week, with much of the subway system still crippled, commuters who turned to street transportation caused gridlock in Manhattan and elsewhere. A patchwork solution of shuttle buses and rules limiting bridge traffic to cars carrying at least three people did not provide much relief. Brooklyn Heights resident Whitney Browne, a 43-year-old father of two grade school girls, was lucky that their school provided some daycare last week. But the girls, 7-year-old Annabel and 5-year-old Lucy, frowned when asked how they felt about having regular school again, and Browne worried about returning to work Monday as a digital marketer based in lower Manhattan. "Everybody is going to be coming back to work so I expect it's going to be a zoo on the subway," he told The Associated Press. Repair crews have been laboring around-the-clock in response to the worst natural disaster in the transit system's 108-year history, Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joseph Lhota said Sunday. Lucas Jackson / Reuters Superstorm Sandy made landfall Monday evening on a destructive and deadly path across the Northeast. Problems getting fuel Sandy — which killed more than 100 people in 10 states, caused massive power outages and left tens of thousands in need of emergency housing —disrupted supply to many gas stations, leading New Jersey to enforce odd-even rationing for motorists. N.J. Gov. Chris Christie tried to reassure people that refineries and pipelines were back online and gas was being delivered. "We do not have a fuel shortage," he said at a news conference on Sunday. Fuel shortage expected to last for days, Cuomo says There was no rationing in New York City, where the search for gas became a maddening scavenger hunt over the weekend. Manhattan doorman Iver Sanchez, who lives in Queens, waited at an Upper West Side gas station for three hours and still had a long line of cars ahead of him. "If I don't get gas today, I won't be able to get any for the rest of the week," he said. In Highlands, a blue collar fishing town, 1,200 homes were flooded, including the mayor's. The federal government has pledged to pay for housing in the region. Meanwhile in New York, transit returns on line. NBC's Michelle Franzen reports. In New Jersey, Monday promised to begin the return to some everyday activities. About half the school districts reported they will reopen and New Jersey Transit said it would have more train and bus service restored in time for the workweek. Philadelphia's transit authority loaned 31 buses that New Jersey Transit planned to use to support shuttle service for commuters traveling to New York City. The challenges were more severe for tens of thousands of people unable to return to their homes and many more than that living without power or heat. Bloomberg said Sunday that 30,000 to 40,000 people in New York City were in need of shelter, including 20,000 in public housing. Temperatures will remain chilly in the days ahead, according to The Weather Channel. Highs in the 40s or low 50s will be commonplace through Wednesday. Some interior and New England locations may not get out of the 30s, it said. Election Day disruptions? Concerns are also growing that voters displaced by Sandy will not get to polling stations on Election Day on Tuesday. Scores of voting centers were rendered useless by the record surge of seawater in New York and New Jersey. New Jersey has said it will allow people displaced by the storm to vote by email. In New York City, some 143,000 voters will be reassigned to different polling sites. Both states are normally easy wins for the Democrats. After a peak of 8.5 million outages across 21 states affected by the massive storm, the rate of restoring power each day has eased as line crews must work on increasingly difficult and isolated outages. Still, about 1.9 million homes and businesses remained in the dark on Sunday. In New Jersey, about a quarter of the state remained without power. For many, that meant they had no heat. NBC News staff, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. More content from NBCNews.com: Pulpit politics: Pastors endorse candidates, thumbing noses at IRS Boy falls into zoo exhibit, mauled to death by African painted dogs Weed wars: If states legalize pot, will feds still crack down? Delphi retirees say government betrayed them Video: Marathon runners racing to help out Sandy victims Follow US news from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook