Sandy Makes New York City Look Like “The Day After Tomorrow” Movie

The Day After Tomorrow hits home

This morning millions of people on the East Coast are facing flooded homes, fallen trees and widespread power outages caused by the giant storm, which swamped New York City’s subway system and submerged streets in Manhattan’s financial district.

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Battle: More than 190 firefighters have contained the six-alarm blaze fire in the Breezy Point section, but they are still putting out some pockets of fire

Sandy, one of the biggest storms to ever descend on the country, hit the mainland at 6.30pm local time yesterday having laid waste to large parts of the coast during the day.

The storm that made landfall in New Jersey yesterday evening with 80 mph sustained winds killed at least 18 people in seven states, cut power to more than 7.4 million homes and businesses from the Carolinas to Ohio, caused scares at two nuclear power plants and stopped the presidential campaign cold.

New York was among the hardest hit, with its financial heart in Lower Manhattan shuttered for a second day and seawater cascading into the still-gaping construction pit at the World Trade Center.

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Looking down: These shocking views taken from high-rise buildings in Manhattan show the extent of flooding in New York City after it was hit by Superstorm Sandy

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the death toll in the city from the huge storm is up to 10. He also says it could be three days or more before power is restored to hundreds of thousands of people now in the dark.

He is giving no estimate on when public transit would be running, though he expects some buses be running later today. He said there have nor been any storm-related fatalities in NYC hospitals.

Among the dead in New York were two children killed instantly by a falling tree in Westchester County, a woman electrocuted to death by falling wires in Manhattan and a 29-year-old man killed in a car crash in Queens. A 30-year-old man was also killed when a tree fell on his house in Flushing, Queens.

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Extraordinary: This CCTV photo shows flood waters from Hurricane Sandy rushing in to the Hoboken PATH train station through an elevator shaft in New Jersey

The storm caused the worst damage in the 108-year history of New York’s extensive subway system, according to Joseph Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

‘This will be one for the record books,’ said John Miksad, senior vice president for electric operations at Consolidated Edison, which had more than 670,000 customers without power in and around New York City.

An unprecedented 13-foot surge of seawater – 3 feet above the previous record – gushed into Gotham, inundating tunnels, subway stations and the electrical system that powers Wall Street, and sent hospital patients and tourists scrambling for safety.

Curiosity turned to concern overnight as New York City residents watched whole neighborhoods disappear into darkness as power was cut.

The World Trade Center site was a glowing ghost near the tip of Lower Manhattan.

Residents reported seeing no lights but the strobes of emergency vehicles and the glimpses of flashlights in nearby apartments. Lobbies were flooded, cars floated and people started to worry about food.

A huge fire destroyed 80 to 100 houses in a flooded beachfront neighborhood Tuesday, forcing firefighters to undertake daring rescues and injuring three people.

More than 190 firefighters contained the blaze but were still putting out some pockets of fire more than nine hours after it erupted.

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Raging: More than 50 homes have been destroyed at Breezy Point in the Queens area of New York, as a result of Hurricane Sandy

Beached: A 168-foot water tanker, the John B. Caddell, sits on the shore where it ran aground on Front Street in the Stapleton neighborhood of New York’s Staten Island

As daylight broke, neighbors walked around aimlessly through their smoke-filled Breezy Point neighborhood, which sits on the Rockaway peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean. Electrical wires dangled within feet of the street.

View from above: This aerial photograph shows burned-out homes in the Breezy Point section of the Queens borough of New York after the fire