New York, East Coast | featured news

When Sandy slammed the East Coast, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons, floats and costumes were spared from the devastation. And Thursday morning, New Yorkers' mood elevated along with the traditional helium-filled balloons as the parade kicked off, just as it had for more than eight decades.

President Barack Obama travels to New York Thursday for a firsthand look at the damage left by superstorm Sandy and to meet with families recovering from the disaster, a White House official said.

Residents in New York and New Jersey on Wednesday braced for the arrival of a nor’easter expected to pelt the region with more rain, high winds and coastal flooding even as the Superstorm Sandy recovery is underway.

The effort to reopen schools shut by Hurricane Sandy presented officials with a tangled puzzle and New York City’s 1.1 million students with a drastically altered landscape... Cots lined the hallways, and toilets were limited or clogged, so some evacuees went to the bathroom on the floor. Volunteers, gagging at air made more fetid by unwashed bodies, took to wearing masks. “We gave them wipes,” a volunteer said, “but there’s only so much you can do with wipes.”

Commuters into New York City endured long waits and crowded trains, giving the recovering commuter system a stress test a week after Superstorm Sandy ravaged the New Jersey and New York coast lines....

Tens of thousands of people in New York state whose homes were damaged by storm Sandy could soon need housing as cold weather arrives, politicians warn.

New York tried to resume its normal frenetic pace Thursday, getting back much of its vital subway system after a crippling storm, but was l slowed by gridlocked traffic....

Nearly 100,000 people were ordered to flee the rising Susquehanna River on Thursday as the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee dumped more rain across the Northeast, socking areas still recovering from Hurricane Irene and closing major highways at the morning rush. At Binghamton, N.Y., the wide river broke a flood record and flowed over retaining walls downtown. Interstate 88 was closed and emergency responders scrambled to evacuate holdouts who didn’t heed warnings to leave neighborhoods.

New York became the latest state to declare a state of emergency in a scramble to get ahead of Hurricane Irene as the storm prepares to make a potentially deadly drive up the East Coast. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's declaration Thursday follows those of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley. North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue - whose state is projected to take the first hit Saturday when Hurricane Irene makes landfall in the U.S. - limited her declaration to counties east of Interstate 95.

An East Coast blizzard that has shut down airports in New York and New England could leave passengers stranded for days.