NEW YORK (AP) — More New Yorkers got power Saturday for the first time since Superstorm Sandy struck the region, but frustrations mounted over gasoline shortages as refueling sites turned into traffic jams of horn-honking confusion.

Gas rationing went into effect in northern New Jersey, while crowds lined up at free fuel distribution sites in New York‘s boroughs, where a limit of 10 gallons per person was imposed. New York officials then said emergency vehicles had the priority over the public.

“It’s chaos, pandemonium out here,” said Chris Damon, whose family was displaced from his home in the Queens neighborhood of Far Rockaway and are staying with relatives in Brooklyn. He circled the block for 3½ hours at the Brooklyn Armory, where the National Guard was directing traffic.

“It’s ridiculous. No one knows what’s going on,” he said.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had announced that the 5,000-gallon trucks from the Defense Department would set up the emergency mobile gas stations at five locations around the New York City metropolitan area.

“Do not panic. I know there is anxiety about fuel,” he said.

After the long lines formed, New York state officials said the public should stay away from the refueling stations until emergency responders first got their gas and more supplies are then made available.

The scene was more orderly in hard-hit Staten Island, where a line of cars stretched for two miles under the supervision of police and National Guard troops. Another 400 people were on foot, carrying gas cans.

As gas rationing went into effect at noon in northern New Jersey, police began enforcing rules to allow only motorists with odd-numbered license plates to refuel. Those with even-numbered plates must wait until Sunday.

Jessica Tisdale of Totowa waited in her Mercedes SUV for 40 minutes at a gas station in Jersey City, but didn’t quite understand the rules and was ordered to pull away because of her even-numbered plate.

“Is it the number or the letter?” she asked around 12:10 p.m. “I don’t think it’s fair. I’ve been in the line since before noon. I don’t think it’s fair. There’s no clarity.”

The officer who waved her out of line threw up his hands and shrugged.

At an Exxon station in Wall, N.J., Kathryn Davidson was unaware of the start of rationing but beat the noon deadline despite a 45-minute wait in line and an even-numbered plate.

“How are people supposed to know?” said Davidson, 53, who said it reminded her of the 1970s, when a similar plan was in place.

“There were fistfights and everything. It got nasty,” she said. “Everyone seems pretty pleasant as of right now.”

In Washington, President Barack Obama visited the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency for an update on superstorm recovery efforts and said “there’s nothing more important than us getting this right.”

“Obviously we’ve now seen that after the initial search and rescue, the recovery process is difficult and it’s painful,” Obama said. “But I’m confident that we will continue to make progress as long as state and local and federal officials stay focused.”

Obama cited the need to restore power; pump out water, particularly from electric substations; ensure that basic needs are addressed; remove debris; and get federal resources in place to help transportation systems come back on line.

About 2.6 million people remained without power in six states after Sandy came ashore Monday night.

About 900,000 people still didn’t have electricity in the New York metropolitan area, including about 550,000 on Long Island, Cuomo said.

About 80 percent of New York City‘s subway service has been restored, he added.

The storm forced cancellation of Sunday’s New York City Marathon. Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed himself Friday and yielded to mounting criticism about running the race, which starts on hard-hit Staten Island and wends through all five of the city’s boroughs.

Bloomberg, who as late as Friday afternoon insisted the world’s largest marathon should go on as scheduled, changed course shortly afterward amid intensifying opposition from the city comptroller, the Manhattan borough president and sanitation workers unhappy they had volunteered to help storm victims but were assigned to the race instead. The mayor said he would not want “a cloud to hang over the race or its participants.”

Bloomberg, in his first comments since canceling the marathon, said he fought to keep it going but the controversy was becoming “so divisive” and too much of a distraction.

“I still think that we had the resources to do both, and that we want people to be able to take a break and that sort of thing. … It’s a big part of our economy,” Bloomberg told WCBS-TV on Saturday during a visit to the borough of Queens. As he spoke, he was met by catcalls from residents angry about the city’s response to the storm.

Many runners understood the decision to call off the marathon. The overall death toll from the superstorm was 105, including 41 in New York City. The widespread power outages made many New Yorkers recoil at the idea of police protecting a foot race and evicting storm victims from hotels to make way for runners.

The cancellation forced runners to deal with what to do with no race.

More than half of the 40,000 athletes were from out of town. Their entry fees were paid. Their airline tickets were purchased. Their friends and family had hotel rooms. And all week the race was a go, even after Sandy came ashore Monday.

“I understand why it cannot be held under the current circumstances,” Meb Keflezighi, the 2009 men’s champion and 2004 Olympic silver medalist, said in a statement. “Any inconveniences the cancellation causes me or the thousands of runners who trained and traveled for this race pales in comparison to the challenges faced by people in NYC and its vicinity.”

ING, the financial company that is the title sponsor of the marathon, said it supported the decision to cancel. The firm’s charitable giving arm has made a $500,000 contribution to help with relief and recovery efforts and is matching employee donations. Sponsor Poland Spring said it would donate the bottled water earmarked for the marathon to relief agencies, more than 200,000 bottles.

“When you have a significant amount of people voicing real pain and unhappiness over its running, you have to hear that. You have to take that into consideration,” said Howard Wolfson, deputy mayor for government affairs and communications.

“Something that is such a celebration of the best of New York can’t become divisive,” he said. “That is not good for the city now as we try to complete our recovery effort, and it is not good for the marathon in the long run.”

Each day has brought signs of recovery.

Aida Padilla, 75, was thrilled that the power at her large housing authority complex in New York City’s Chelsea section had returned late Friday.

“Thank God,” said Padilla, 75. “I screamed and I put the lights on. Everybody was screaming. It was better than New Year’s.”

Asked about whether she had heat, she replied, “hot and cold water and heat! Thank God, Jesus!”

But on Staten Island, there was grumbling that the borough was a lower priority to get its services restored.

“You know it’s true,” said Tony Carmelengo, who lives in the St. George section of Staten Island and still does not have electricity.

Added his neighbor, Anthony Como: “It’s economics. Manhattan gets everything, let’s face it.”

The governor said the New York area had a strong sense of community, “but until you have your lights on you’re not happy.”

“We’re not going to stop until we have every house and every home restored. … This was truly a crisis, but it requires patience,” Cuomo said.

NYU Langone Medical Center, one of two New York hospitals that had to evacuate patients at the height of the storm, said it would reopen Monday, although some doctors would see patients at alternate sites.

Seven backup generators at the hospital failed Monday night, forcing the evacuation of 300 patients.

At Bellevue Hospital Center, some 700 patients had to be evacuated after the power failed. An official there said the hospital could be out of commission at least two more weeks.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he would make public a list of when New Jersey utility companies intend to restore power to each community. Even if they end up working faster or slower, he said, residents will have a sense of when power will be restored so they can plan their lives a bit better.

Commuter rail operator NJ Transit said it would have more service restored in time for the workweek to start Monday, most of Atlantic City’s casinos reopened, and many school districts decided to hold classes on Thursday and Friday — days previously reserved for the New Jersey Education Association’s annual conference, which has been canceled.

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Associated Press writers Ben Nuckols in Wall, N.J.; Katie Zezima in Jersey City, N.J., and Michael Rubinkam, Verena Dobnik, AJ Connelly and Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this report.

But nearly as soon as the plans were announced, they began to unravel.

In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had to quickly alter a plan to have the military deliver free fuel after residents swarmed the first such depot in Queens. The fuel that the military is providing is now being used exclusively for emergency responders.

“We have asked the general public to no longer come to these distribution centers,” said Eric Durr, the director of public affairs for the New York Division of Military and Naval Affairs.

In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie said he had decided against using the military to provide fuel, fearing the kind of chaos that unfolded in New York.

But his plan to limit fill-ups to every other day by license plate number had New Jersey drivers confused and upset.

At an Exxon station in Bayonne, N.J., police officers and people waiting in line for gasoline argued over the meaning of Mr. Christie’s order regarding gas rationing.

“It’s an executive order from the governor’s office,” said Drew Niekrasz, the Bayonne deputy police chief. “We have to follow it. Even though it makes no sense.”

Janet Tysh, a Bayonne resident, was waiting in line for fuel for her generator and had planned to get gas for her car on Sunday. When she asked a police officer to explain the new policy, he pulled the governor’s order from his pocket.

“What do you mean?” said Ms. Tysh, 61, who is retired. “Look at all these cars.”

Mr. Christie defended his decision to ration gasoline at an afternoon briefing, saying that he was hesitant to issue the order but after seeing the lines across the state on Friday, he felt he had no choice.

He said he could not estimate how long the rationing system will have to remain in place.

For New Jersey, he said, the biggest problem for the state’s gas stations was power even more than supply at this point.

He explained that in northern New Jersey, many stations were not able to be connected to generators, something the governor said he was unaware of until this storm hit.

“In New Jersey, no one had a complete list of all the gas stations,” Mr. Christie said. “You can bet we are going to have one now.”

Mr. Cuomo announced on Saturday morning that fuel trucks would be deployed in four locations around New York City to distribute up to 10 gallons to each motorist.

“Do not panic,” Mr. Cuomo urged at a briefing outside a National Guard armory in Manhattan on Saturday. “We did have a shortage in fuel delivery. That situation has been remedied.”

Despite his pleas, not long after his announcement, people swarmed the Queens location.

Despite assurances that millions of gallons of gas would be flowing into the region imminently, the sense of crisis among residents has seemingly only grown.

Mr. Cuomo said that with the city’s port operating again, the crisis should pass soon, with 28 million gallons of gas flowing into the state this weekend.

But with stop gap measures not working, the Defense Department on Saturday put into motion new plans to provide fuel directly to gas stations in New York and New Jersey that have run dry, as well as send generators — along with National Guard troops to operate and secure them — to gas stations unable to pump fuel because they are in areas still blacked out by the storm.

The expanded Pentagon effort for providing gasoline will supplement an initial, stopgap program begun Friday to pump fuel at 10 National Guard armories, 5 in New York and 5 in New Jersey.

At gas stations that have fuel supplies, but no electricity needed to pump gas, the Defense Department will start operating generators. Those generators will be supervised — for safety and security — by National Guard troops in cooperation with local law enforcement.

However, the plan would not address the problem Mr. Christie said New jersey faces, with many stations unable to run generators.

For gas stations that have electricity but have run out of fuel in the post-storm rush to buy gas, the Pentagon — working through its contracting arm, the Defense Logistics Agency — will deliver fuel. This will be an increasing priority as the regular power grid comes back online.

More than 700 gas stations in New York and New Jersey had been identified, and generators and fuel would be delivered based on assessments of need by federal and local authorities in conversations with the fuel industry.

In other Pentagon efforts disclosed on Saturday, the Defense Department, again supported by National Guard personnel and the Army Corps of Engineers, will install generators at blacked-out fuel terminals in hopes of eliminating bottlenecks in the distribution network between supplies and consumers.

The Department of Energy and local utilities companies are assessing which fuel terminals should receive priority in restoring electricity from the regular power grid. The Pentagon has offered to provide components and to transport them where needed, officials said.

But with the election just days away, despite the robust plans, the images being seen around the country remained those of snaking lines, angry confrontations and abject frustration.

 

At a Shell station in Ossining, N.Y., a co-owner Frank Manicchio, 32, said that for the previous three days he had been rationing fuel, giving priority to emergency vehicles, Cablevision and people in desperate straits. But the station received a tank this morning, he said, and he is expecting the situation to become normal soon.

“Everything is flowing now, but you have people coming in with three-quarters of a tank blocking people who really need it,” Mr. Manicchio said. “People aren’t being rational. They act like it’s the end of the world when things will settle down in a couple days.”

Vinny Grecco, 47, of Croton-on-Hudson, had spent more than two hours in line. “I’m on fumes!” said Mr. Grecco, who needed the refill to get to work.

Richard Fasanella of Staten Island said he waited in line at a Hess station for 16 hours on Friday. When he finally got to the pump, he saw why the wait was so long. Limited power at the station slowed the pumps to a trickle. He said he watched the gas go in penny by penny. It took 25 minutes to fill the tank of his Honda Civic.

On Saturday, he drove to Bayonne and stood in line with a red plastic jug.

“I’ve been here about an hour,” he said. “That’s nothing.”

Reporting was contributed by Christopher Maag, Sarah Maslin Nir, Marc Santora and Bernard Vaughan.

STORM UPDATE – AFTERNOON STATUS – SATURDAY,NOVEMBER 3, 2012

North Castle’s recovery effort continues in full force today. Crews are working in all parts of our community.  Be aware there may be periodic road closures as we work towards recovery. 

 

ROAD UPDATE:

Following is a list of some  of the roads being worked on today:

Byram Lake Road/Oregon Road

Whippoorwill Rd/Whippoorwill Crossing

Hickory Kingdom Rd.

Creemer Rd.

Old Orchard St.

School St., Cox Ave, Rte.22

High St.

Middle Patent Rd.

Nannyhagen Rd.

 

Multiple streets in Windmill farms and North White Plains are being worked on as well. This list is not complete, and crews are constantly being redeployed on an as-needed basis.   We have been fortunate to have secured more resources than we did for the last storm.  However, the damage has in many instances been more severe.

  

POWER:

Currently 85% of our community is still without power.  Once all trees are removed from wires we expect the restoration and regeneration of the power lines to begin. By the end of today I should have a better picture on where we stand.

 

DRY ICE:

Con Ed has informed us they intend to move Dry Ice distribution to the County Center in White Plains. Hours of operation are today 11/3 from 12:00PM to 6:00PM.

 

FOOD AT HERGENHAN: 

We have have worked out the details to provide residents who are without heat and power some expanded food options tonight. Please come by the Rec Center tonight if you are interested. 

 

In addition, my colleagues on the Town Board have graciously volunteered to host a spaghetti dinner tomorrow night.  More information on that will come out tomorrow afternoon. 

 

TWITTER 

Finally, I’ve opened a Twitter account as an additional means to keep residents informed of developments on a “real time” basis.  If you wish to sign up to follow me, my Twitter account is @northcastleny.

By KAREN MATTHEWS and LEANNE ITALIE
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) – Life is far from normal for 13-year-old Eliran Cohen a week after Superstorm Sandy flooded his family’s Staten Island condo.

The teen, his mother and his older brother were ready to use a door as a flotation device when the storm hit last Monday, filling their ground floor with water.

Even as he helps clean up from the destruction, Eliran craves his old routine.

“I’d like to get back to school to see how all my friends are doing,” he said.

Across the New York City, parents and students cooped up for a week say they too are ready to heed the mayor’s call to return to school Monday, though some wondered whether it was possible in devastated areas. They wondered too how it would all work for the nation’s largest school system serving about 1.1 million students, considering the scope and complexity of problems caused by the storm.

The challenges are enormous: Many residents in Lower Manhattan, Staten Island and other neighborhoods still were without power Saturday. Others lost their homes altogether and were still cleaning up debris. Some city schools were being used as shelters. And with gasoline scarce and public transportation crippled, many teachers and students will have a hard time getting to school.

Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said all of the city’s 1,700 public schools will open on Monday except for 57 that have flooding or structural damage. Students from the 57 schools will be relocated but not until Wednesday, Walcott said. He said officials need the two extra days to figure out bus routes.

“It’s a very complex process,” he said. “This is a major turnaround in a very short time.”

Because Tuesday is Election Day and therefore a holiday for public school students, kids being relocated will miss only one extra school day.

Finding space for the displaced students will be a challenge, but Patricia Lockhart, a science teacher at an undamaged Staten Island school, said school staff will make them as comfortable as possible.

“We’re going to welcome them with open arms,” she said.

Eight of the city’s high schools that reopen will also serve as temporary homeless shelters. Teachers who reported to work Friday at one of those schools – Manhattan’s High School for Graphic Communication Arts – complained that homeless men were terrorizing residents displaced by the storm.

Walcott said students and shelter residents will be in separate parts of school buildings and shouldn’t come in contact with each other. He promised that conditions at the shared schools will be safe and sanitary.

Many students in New Jersey also will return to school on Monday, however decisions on districts in the hardest-hit areas of the state won’t be made until Sunday. Stephanie and Greg Patruno of Wall, N.J., said their daughters, ages 5 and 9, were handling their extended power outage well, but they were concerned that schools would stay closed for too long.

In Brooklyn’s frayed Red Hook neighborhood, workers have been pumping water out of New York’s Public School 15 since Sandy rolled in last Monday.

The Department of Education decided late Friday to bus P.S. 15 students to a neighboring school, but parents interviewed at a public housing complex near P.S. 15 had no idea that their children would be sent to another location and would not be back in the classroom until Wednesday.

“They haven’t told us what is happening,” said Marilyn Mieles, the mother of a second-grader at P.S. 15 who also attended the school.

Julie Cavanagh, a teacher at P.S. 15, said school staffers were working to inform parents about the temporary location. Walcott said Department of Education officials would get the word out about all the relocations but he conceded that it will be challenging since some families lack electricity and Internet service.

Several schools on Staten Island also were still without power Saturday, but Sam Pirozzolo, president of Staten Island’s Community Education Council, a local school board, said only two or three of the borough’s schools will be unusable on Monday.

Pirozzolo said opening schools Monday is the right move, despite any confusion.

“Children have missed a week of school,” he said. “What most people are looking for is going back to their normal, everyday routine.”

In soggy Coney Island, Evangeline Pugh said her apartment on the second floor of a public housing high-rise lost power after a fuse blew when she tried to plug in a heater so she had to replace it with the best conservatory heaters. The mother of four said she had to send the youngest two – the only ones left in school – to her eldest son in East New York because they have asthma. But Pugh said she would like to see them go back to school.

“It will be better than them sitting around the apartment and being cold,” she said.

In Manhattan, Sandy knocked out power at P.S. 33 in the Chelsea area. The night before the storm, custodian Edzert Pierre made his way to the school, knowing he would be needed to watch over the building and that he would likely be stuck back home in Far Rockaway if he had waited a day.

He slept in the PTA room, on two bean bag chairs propped on a table, until power came on late Friday.

“I can’t leave the premises until the power is on because I’ve got to make sure all the electric is turned back on, nothing blows out,” Pierre said. “Because if I switch it back on and something blows out that’s even worse, then there’s not going to be school Monday.”

New York City Teachers were told to report to work Friday, one school day ahead of students. Teacher Emily Koch showed up at Upper West Side school to prepare.

Some of her students travel by bus and subway to get to school.

“We’re going to be really reasonable. If they can’t get in Monday, they can’t get in Monday,” she said. “As a teacher, we understand.”

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Associated Press writers Michael Rubinkam, Beth J. Harpaz and Amanda Barrett in New York and Ben Nuckols in Wall, N.J., contributed to this report.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.