Hundreds of thousands of children finally went back to school on Monday and New York slogged through a full fledged commute but the Northeast kept one eye on its halting recovery, the other on a you cant be serious second storm that could bring high winds and flooding to communities already staggered by Sandy.
Half of Sea Gate’s 850 homes sustained sufficient damage and 25 were gone. Three quarters of a concrete sea wall, a barrier intended to protect the exposed spit of land from storms were damaged and destroyed.
Szajngarten, 33, a fifth generation New York shuddered at the prospect of another storm by considering that Sandy had ripped a hole in his living room wall, offering a suddenly unobstructed view of the sea. A northeaster churning offshore on Monday was expected to rake the beleaguered northeast on Wednesday and Thursday. Although the storm would by no means as potent as Sandy, it could mean 2 inches of rain in some places, sustained winds of at least 40 mph and gusts approaching 60 mph. Snow could fall in Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut. Water levels could rise by 3 or 4 feet in some areas when breaking waves as tall as 14 feet roll in ahead of the storm, the National Weather Service said.
Local officials were also scrambling to respond. Some beachfront communities considered new evacuation orders. The Red Cross said it would assemble 80,000 blankets to distribute as temperatures dropped into the 30s. Authorities said they were moving to drain floodwaters and restore power as quickly as possible.