‘The scale of the devastation left by Superstorm Sandy is mounting today as the death toll continues to rise - currently 48 people across the US and Canada have been reported dead, but the final figure is expected to be significantly higher.

President Obama declared a 'major disaster' in New York and Long Island as flooded streets were littered with cars, homes were razed to the ground and tankers washed up on shore.

The President warned that Sandy 'is not yet over' and announced that he would visit New Jersey on Wednesday to visit the scenes of the destruction.

Hundreds of thousands of people are without power in New York and the transit system, schools, the stock exchange and Broadway are all out of action after a 13ft wall of water caused by the storm surge and high tides brought severe flooding to subways and road tunnels.

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 on Monday evening with 80mph sustained winds, cut power to more than 7.4 million homes and businesses from the Carolinas to Ohio, caused scares at two nuclear plants and stopped the presidential campaign cold.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the death toll in the America's most populous city is up to ten - two children, aged 11 and 13, were killed instantly in the city by a falling tree. Many of the total number of victims were said to have been killed by falling trees.

Nearly 200 firefighters spent the night battling to get a blaze under control in the Queens, but over 80 homes were flattened in the fire.

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Eye of the storm: New York was among the hardest hit by Superstorm Sandy. A fire broke out in Breezy Point, Queens, destroying between 80 and 100 houses

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

Washed up: A resident pushes a bicycle down a street covered in beach sand due to flooding from Superstorm Sandy in Long Beach, New York

Destruction: Cars floating after being pushed out a flooded basement in the city during last night's battering

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

Fleet in the floods: Yellow cabs in a parking lot are surrounded by water after Superstorm Sandy struck Hoboken, New Jersey

Trashed: Cars float up from a car garage in a mixture of floodwater and gasoline in lower Manhattan as workers begin the process of pumping out the mess

Wrecked: A man looks at an uprooted tree which fell on a car when Superstorm Sandy swept through the Brooklyn borough of New York

Uprooted: A fallen tree at Cooper Square in the East Village, New York, after Superstorm Sandy battered the city

Something in the way: A fallen tree blocks a street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in the wake of Hurricane Sandy

Timber: Superstorm Sandy caused a fallen tree to crash down near park benches in Manhattan's Upper West Side

Torrent: Cars on Avenue C and 7th Street are submerged in floodwater which flowed through the city after Superstorm Sandy arrived

Left behind: An umbrella lies abandoned in the dirt on a Manhattan street hours after Superstorm Sandy swept through New York

Overblown: A lighting shop in New York is closed after the storm. Strong winds brought down part of a banner which had advertised the business's 'blow-out sale'

Understatement: A Whole Foods store in New York informs its customers that it is closed 'due to inclement weather'

Mopping up: Shop owner Amanda Zink begins the arduous task of cleaning her store The Salty Paw, which was completely flooded on the waterfront of lower Manhattan

Two women shop for groceries by torchlight in the Tribeca neighbourhood of New York after power outages caused large parts of the city to fall into darkness

Dangerous: A cordon is put up around scaffolding which collapsed in New York after Superstorm Sandy caused widespread damage in the city

Barrier: Water and debris block a section of South Street in lower Manhattan, in New York, which had been in the storm's path

Struggle: A Port Authority Police vehicle makes its way through floodwater covering roads leading toward Teterboro Airport in New Jersey

On Wednesday, the President plans to thank first responders in New Jersey as he surveys the damage with state Governor Chris Christie, who has praised Obama’s leadership in dealing with the disaster.

Speaking from the headquarters of the Red Cross in Washington DC, Obama said that Sandy ‘is not yet over’.

Warning there were still risks of flooding and downed power lines, he described the storm as ‘heartbreaking for the nation’ and, offering his thoughts and prayers to the victims, he added: ‘America is with you.’

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says it could be three days or more before power is restored to hundreds of thousands of people now in the dark.

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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.

The storm was once Hurricane Sandy but combined with two wintry systems to become a huge hybrid storm whose center smashed ashore late Monday in New Jersey. New York City was perfectly positioned to absorb the worst of its storm surge - a record 13 feet.

The dead included two who drowned in a home and one who was in bed when a tree fell on an apartment, the mayor said. A 23-year-old woman died by stepping into a puddle near a live electrical wire.

A man and a woman were crushed by a falling tree. An off-duty officer on Staten Island who ushered his relatives to the attic of his home apparently became trapped in the basement.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said 156 rescue missions were made by state and city police.

'It's fair to say that the state police and NYPD and the National Guard saved hundreds of lives yesterday,' he said.

Emergency: President Barack Obama has declared a 'major disaster' in New York and Long Island. Pictured, he receives an update on the ongoing response to Hurricane Sandy, in the Situation Room of the White House, via teleconference

Scenes from New Jersey: Rescue workers use a dinghy to patrol a flooded street in Hoboken (left) and a utility pole (right), carrying 230,000 volts to Atlantic City, is held in place by a truck crane after it snapped from the high winds

Broken home: A man and child look in disbelief at a collapsed house in the Cosey Beach neighborhood of East Haven, Connecticut

Aftermath: A rainbow and looming clouds appear over the sky in New York's Manhattan after the hurricane stormed the city

Transport down: A view of an entirely flooded tunnel under Battery Park. 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

Damaged: A building that had its facade ripped off by Hurricane Sandy - beds and radiators can be seen in the block

Wrecked: A construction site sinks into a large hole on South Street Seaport - the clean-up operation is expected to cost over £12 billion

City of water: A flooded street in the Dumbo section of Brooklyn after the city awakens to the affects of Hurricane Sandy. It hit the mainland at 6.30pm local time last night having laid waste to large parts of the coast throughout the day

Road blocked: Pieces of lumber displaced from a yard by rising flood waters are seen beneath Manhattan Bridge in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy

Deluge: Water floods over the barriers in New York. The city's transit system, schools, the stock exchange and Broadway were also shut after a 13ft wall of water caused by the storm surge and high tides brought severe flooding to subways and road tunnels

Transformation: A subway station now resembles a river in one of the US's largest cities

Power storm: The full force of the storm is evident by the way a metal shutter has been ripped from the wall

Submerged: The lobby of Verizon's Corporate headquarters in Manhattan. The headquarter houses executive offices as well as some of the company's key telecom equipment that supports services to New York's financial district

Operation clean-up: Debris litters a flooded street in the Dumbo section of Brooklyn after the city awakens to the affects of Hurricane Sandy

Mission: A man clears leaves from a sewer drain in lower Manhattan to help the flooding ease

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.

The city's transit system suffered unprecedented damage, from the underground subway tunnels to commuter rails to bus garages, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said Tuesday.

'We have no idea how long it's going to take,' spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said.

Today the New York governor told citizens facing power outages that it could last for several days: 'Eat the most perishable items first: leftovers, meat, poultry & foods containing milk, cream, sour cream, or soft cheese.'

All 10 subway tunnels between Manhattan and Brooklyn were flooded during the storm, as the saltwater surge inundated signals, switches and third rails and covered tracks with sludge, she said.

The entire system wasn't flooded and the authority was already pumping water.

Workers ultimately will have to walk all the hundreds of miles of track to inspect it, she said, and it wasn't clear how long that would take. Trains had been moved to safety before the storm.

Rubble: People in Atlantic City view the area where a 2000-foot section of the 'uptown' boardwalk was destroyed by flooding

Sand and debris cover a part of town near the ocean in New Jersey after serious flooding ravaged the coastline

Chaos: A boat moved by gushing waters rests on the tracks at Metro-North's Ossining Station on the Hudson Line

Pedestrians skirt around flooded areas on the Lower East Side of Manhattan as they try to get back to normal

Pictures taken of the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy on the Lower East side in New York

Sweep up: Workers clean up sheets of blown-out glass in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy - many store faces took a beating from the strong winds

Left: A map showing track of Hurricane Sandy through New England, with inset showing projected rainfall totals through Wednesday night and right. mid-Atlantic states showing storm surge from the superstorm storm 

Challenge: Firefighters tackle a blaze in the Breezy Point section of the Queens borough of New York, in which more than 80 homes were destroyed

Tearful: A woman cries as she and others look at homes devastated by Superstorm Sandy at the Breezy Point section of the Queens borough of New York

Lost in the fire: A woman stands among the still-smouldering remains of homes which burned down in the Breezy Point area of Queens in New York

Upsetting: Tom and Deidre Duffy look through the wreckage of their home at Breezy Point, in Queens, which was devastated by fire

Gone: Deidre Duffy studies all that is left of her home at Breezy Point, in the Queens borough of New York

Toy: A doll's head can be seen among the charred remains of a house destroyed by fire in the aftermath of the post-tropical storm

Destroyed: Residents look over the remains of burned homes in the Rockaways section of New York

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

Desolate: Residents walk past debris by the Con Edison 14 street and Avenue C power plant on the Lower East Side on Manhattan. An electrical explosion caused a shut down of power due to high winds and flood waters

Mayor Bloomberg said there was just no telling when power and transit would be back, but estimated some bus service would be restored by Tuesday afternoon.

'Clearly the challenges our city faces in the coming days are enormous,' he said.

Water lapped over the seawall in Battery Park City, flooding rail yards, subway tracks, tunnels and roads.

Rescue workers floated bright orange rafts down flooded downtown streets, while police officers rolled slowly down the street with loudspeakers telling people to go home.

'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.

Time to heal: City of Elmira N.Y., electrician, Nate Battle fixes a traffic light that was downed from high winds

Search: Aviators of the 1-150th Assault Helicopter Battalion, New Jersey National Guard, look for displaced residents along the coastline of Seaside Heights today

Water, water everywhere: An aerial view of flooding on the bay side of Seaside, New Jersey

Livelihood damaged: A man cleans up the remains of his food store damaged by Hurricane Sandy, in New York's South Street Seaport

Helping hand: Jolito Ortiz, left, helps sweep water out of his friend's apartment while cleaning up after flooding

Surveying: Rod Zindani surveys the damage to his Best Of New York Food Deli

Flooded areas: Highlighted areas show flooding in New York. An unprecedented 13-foot surge of seawater - 3 feet above the previous record - gushed into Gotham

Plan of action: Workers survey the damage from a fallen tree in lower Manhattan this morning

Debris: A dead deer, right, is pictured with driftwood and debris left by a combination of storm surge as a man holds a battered road sign

Ripped from the ground: People pass a fallen tree in the Battery Park neighborhood of Manhattan

Hope springs: An unidentified couple collect ginkgo fruit knocked from trees by the ferocious winds, as a stunning rainbow appears like an arcing message of hope over the flooded devastation of New York left in the wake of the devastating storm

Strewn across street: Debris outside flats belonging to actress Anne Hathaway and reality star Olivia Palermo's building

Precarious: A crane attached to One57, a luxury apartment tower under construction in midtown Manhattan, hangs down after partially collapsing amid gusts from Sandy

Devastation: A fallen tree and power line ripped from the ground outside homes on Harvard Street in Garden City, New York

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, 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.

Shock: Residents look over the remains of burned homes in the Rockaways section

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.

Officials said the fire was reported around 11 p.m. Monday in an area flooded by the superstorm that began sweeping through the city earlier.

Firefighters told WABC-TV that the water was chest high on the street, and they had to use a boat to make rescues.

They said in one apartment home, about 25 people were trapped in an upstairs unit, and the two-story home next door was ablaze and setting fire to the apartment's roof.

Firefighters climbed an awning to get to the trapped people and took them downstairs to a boat in the street.

Rescued: Hospital workers evacuate a patient Deborah Dadlani from NYU Langone Medical Center during Hurricane Sandy

ighting the way: Using torches Deborah Dadlani is moved in the dark from NYU Langone Medical Center

Treatment: A patient is wheeled to an ambulance in the rain during an evacuation of New York University Tisch Medical today

No train service: Veronica De Souza posted this extraordinary picture ('via ninjapito') on Twitter of the 86th Street station with water above the platform

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

Aid at hand: An emergency operations centre in Fairfax County, Virginia, co-ordinates the mammoth response to the severe flooding caused by Sandy

Video footage of the scene showed a hellish swath of tightly packed homes fully engulfed in orange flames as firefighters hauled hoses while sloshing in ankle-high water.

Many homes appeared completely flattened by the wind-whipped flames. One firefighter suffered a minor injury and was taken to a hospital.

Two civilians suffered minor injuries and were treated at the scene.

In September, the same neighborhood was struck by a tornado that hurled debris in the air, knocked out power and startled residents who once thought of twisters as a Midwestern phenomenon.

Skyscrapers swayed and creaked in winds that partially toppled a crane 74 stories above Midtown.

Right before dawn, a handful of taxis were out on the streets, though there was an abundance of emergency and police vehicles.

Time to act: President Obama has declared a 'major disaster' in New York and Long Island as swathes of the city woke up under water after a night of being battered by Superstorm Sandy

A tale of two cities: Lower Manhattan in darkness after Sandy struck damaging power and previously New York city's famous lit-up skyline

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

No go area: An uprooted tree blocks 7th street near Avenue D in the East Village as a result of high winds from Sandy on Monday in Manhattan, New York

The massive storm reached well into the Midwest: Chicago officials warned residents to stay away from the Lake Michigan shore as the city prepares for winds of up to 60 mph and waves exceeding 24 feet well into Wednesday.

Remnants of the former Category 1 hurricane were forecast to head across Pennsylvania before taking another sharp turn into western New York by Wednesday morning.

Although weakening as it goes, the massive storm - which caused wind warnings from Florida to Canada - will continue to bring heavy rain and local flooding, said Daniel Brown, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

As Hurricane Sandy closed in on the Northeast, it converged with a cold-weather system that turned it into a monstrous hybrid of rain and high wind - and even snow in West Virginia and other mountainous areas inland.

Skyline: Brooklyn Bridge Park pictured here after it flooded following the arrival of Sandy, which has made landfall on the East Coast of the US

Bang: This image from video provided by Dani Hart shows what appears to be a transformer exploding in lower Manhattan as seen from a building rooftop in Brooklyn

Bright light: This photo shows what appear to be transformers exploding after much of lower Manhattan lost power during Superstorm Sandy in New York

Flooding: Water rushes into the Carey Tunnel (previously the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel), caused by Sandy on Monday night in the financial district of New York

Flood water rushes into a below-ground carpark in New York's Financial District

Just before it made landfall at 8 p.m. near Atlantic City, N.J., forecasters stripped Sandy of hurricane status - but the distinction was purely technical, based on its shape and internal temperature.

It still packed hurricane-force wind, and forecasters were careful to say it was still dangerous to the tens of millions in its path.

While the hurricane's 90 mph winds registered as only a Category 1 on a scale of five, it packed 'astoundingly low' barometric pressure, giving it terrific energy to push water inland, said Kerry Emanuel, a professor of meteorology at MIT. .

Three of the victims were children, one just 8 years old.

Sandy, which killed 69 people in the Caribbean before making its way up the Eastern Seaboard, began to hook left at midday Monday toward the New Jersey coast.

Even before it made landfall, crashing waves had claimed an old, 50-foot piece of Atlantic City's world-famous Boardwalk.

'We are looking at the highest storm surges ever recorded' in the Northeast, said Jeff Masters, meteorology director for Weather Underground, a private forecasting service.

Sitting on the dangerous northeast wall of the storm, the New York metropolitan area got the worst of it. 

An explosion at a ConEdison substation knocked out power to about 310,000 customers in Manhattan, said Miksad.

'We see a pop. The whole sky lights up,' said Dani Hart, 30, who was watching the storm from the roof of her building in the Navy Yards.

'It sounded like the Fourth of July,' Stephen Weisbrot said from his 10th-floor apartment.

New York University's Tisch Hospital was forced to evacuate 200 patients after its backup generator failed. NYU Medical Dean Robert Grossman said patients - among them 20 babies from neonatal intensive care that were on battery-powered respirators - had to be carried down staircases and to dozens of waiting ambulances.

Without power, the hospital had no elevator service, meaning patients had to be carefully carried down staircases and outside into the weather. Gusts of wind blew their blankets as nurses held IVs and other equipment.

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

Isolated: Jane's Carousel, the vintage merry-go-round in Brooklyn Bridge Park, in the DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) section of Brooklyn, is 'basically an island now', Instagram user Andjelicaaa said

New York University, Downtown and Manhattan Veterans Affairs hospitals were evacuated.

Bellevue and Coney Island hospitals have no power. There have been no storm-related fatalities in the hospitals and there are 6,100 people in city shelters.

About 670,000 homes and businesses were without power late Monday in the city and suburban Westchester County.

In Schwartz's Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook, residents who ignored a mandatory evacuation order awoke to debris-strewn streets and a continued blackout. About 2 inches of mucky dirt and leaves covered streets crisscrossed by downed power lines after water sloshed 12 blocks inland.

The doors of the Fairway grocery store were blown out. Several cars left in the parking lot were shifted by flood waters overnight and were left crammed door to door.

Schwartz and her husband rode out the storm on the third floor of the residences above the Fairway and said white-capped flood waters reached at least 3 feet around the building.

"It was scary how fast the water came up," she said.

Help: New York City resident Gary He posted this picture with the caption 'Dude in snorkeling mask trying to rescue his friend in Greenpoint (Brooklyn)'

The facade of a four-story Manhattan building in the Chelsea neighborhood crumbled and collapsed suddenly, leaving the lights, couches, cabinets and desks inside visible from the street. No one was hurt, although some of the falling debris hit a car.

Not only was the subway shut down, but the Holland Tunnel connecting New York to New Jersey was closed, as was a tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan. The Brooklyn Bridge, the George Washington Bridge, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and several other spans were closed due to high winds.

The three major airports in the New York area - LaGuardia, Newark Liberty and Kennedy - remained shut down Tuesday.

Overall, more than 13,500 flights had been canceled for Monday and Tuesday, almost all related to the storm, according to the flight-tracking service FlightAware.

A construction crane atop a $1.5 billion luxury high-rise in midtown Manhattan collapsed in high winds and dangled precariously. Thousands of people were ordered to leave several nearby buildings as a precaution, including 900 guests at the ultramodern Le Parker Meridien hotel.

Alice Goldberg, 15, a tourist from Paris, was watching television in the hotel - whose slogan is 'Uptown, Not Uptight' - when a voice came over the loudspeaker and told everyone to leave.

'They said to take only what we needed, and leave the rest, because we'll come back in two or three days,' she said as she and hundreds of others gathered in the luggage-strewn marble lobby. 'I hope so.'

Wall Street remained closed today and U.S. stock exchanges said they were testing contingency plans to ensure trading resumes as soon as possible this week after Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast.

U.S. markets will be closed for a second day - the first time since 1888 that the NYSE remained closed for two consecutive days due to weather.
The New York Stock Exchange said contingency plans are being tested only as a safety measure.

Fire destroyed at least 50 homes Monday night in a flooded neighborhood in the Breezy Point section of the borough of Queens, where the Rockaway peninsula juts into the Atlantic Ocean.

Firefighters told WABC-TV that they had to use a boat to rescue residents because the water was chest high on the street. About 25 people were trapped in one home, with two injuries reported.

Airlines canceled around 12,500 flights because of the storm, a number that was expected to grow.

Off North Carolina, not far from an area known as 'the Graveyard of the Atlantic,' a replica of the 18th-century sailing ship HMS Bounty that was built for the 1962 Marlon Brando movie 'Mutiny on the Bounty' sank when her diesel engine and bilge pumps failed. Coast Guard helicopters plucked 14 crew members from rubber lifeboats bobbing in 18-foot seas.

No movement: Vehicles are submerged on 14th Street near the Consolidated Edison power plant on Monday in Manhattan, New York

Submerged: Instagram user 'Jesse and Greg' posted this incredible picture of East Village flooding in Manhattan, New York

Cars were flooded in the Financial District of New York as Hurricane Sandy threatens 50million people on the East Coast

A 15th crew member who was found unresponsive several hours after the others was later pronounced dead. The Bounty's captain was still missing.

One of the units at Indian Point, a nuclear power plant about 45 miles north of New York City, was shut down around 10:45 p.m. Monday because of external electrical grid issues, said Entergy Corp., which operates the plant. The company said there was no risk to employees or the public.

And officials declared an 'unusual event' at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey Township, N.J., the nation's oldest, when waters surged to 6 feet above sea level during the evening.

Within two hours, the situation at the reactor - which was offline for regular maintenance - was upgraded to an alert, the second-lowest in a four-tiered warning system. Oyster Creek provides 9 percent of the state's electricity.

In Baltimore, fire officials said four unoccupied rowhouses collapsed in the storm, sending debris into the street but causing no injuries. Meanwhile, a blizzard in far western Maryland caused a pileup of tractor-trailers that blocked the westbound lanes of Interstate 68 on slippery Big Savage Mountain near the town of Finzel.

'It's like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs up here,' said Bill Wiltson, a Maryland State Police dispatcher.

Hundreds of miles from the storm's center, gusts topping 60 mph prompted officials to close the port of Portland, Maine, and scaring away several cruise ships.

A state of emergency in New Hampshire prompted Vice President Joe Biden to cancel a rally in Keene and Republican nominee Mitt Romney's wife, Ann, to call off her bus tour through the Granite State.

About 360,000 people in 30 Connecticut towns were urged to leave their homes under mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders. Christi McEldowney was among those who fled to a Fairfield shelter. She and other families brought tents for their children to play in.

'There's something about this storm,' she said. 'I feel it deep inside.'

Despite dire warnings and evacuation orders that began Saturday, many stayed put.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie - whose own family had to move to the executive mansion after his home in Mendham, far from the storm's center, lost power - criticized the mayor of Atlantic City for opening shelters there instead of forcing people out.

Eugenia Buono, 77, and her neighbor, Elaine DiCandio, 76, were among several dozen people who took shelter at South Kingstown High School in Narragansett, R.I. They live on Harbor Island, which is connected to the mainland by a causeway.

'I'm not an idiot,' said Buono, who survived hurricanes Carol in 1954 and Bob in 1991. 'People are very foolish if they don't leave.'

Reggie Thomas emerged this morning from his job as a maintenance supervisor at a prison near the overflowing Hudson River, a toothbrush in his front pocket, to find his 2011 Honda with its windows down and a foot (304 millimeters) of water inside.

'It's totaled,' Thomas said, with a shrug. 'You would have needed a boat last night.'

Today stock trading is closed in the U.S. again for a second day running - the last time the New York Stock Exchange was closed for weather was in 1985 because of Hurricane Gloria, and it will be the first time since 1888 that the exchange will have been closed for two consecutive days because of weather.

Residents in New York City spent much of yesterday trying to salvage normal routines, jogging and snapping pictures of the water while officials warned the worst of the storm had not hit. Water lapped over the seawall in Battery Park City, flooding rail yards, subway tracks, tunnels and roads.

NYC'S HISTORY OF HURRICANES

1821 Hurricane: Without modern technology, the hurricane in September, 1821, caught New Yorkers off guard when, in one hour, the tide rose 13 feet. The East River and Hudson River breached, with their waters meeting across Lower Manhattan. The area was not largely populated then, so there were few deaths

1893 Hurricane A Category 1 hurricane completely destroyed Hog Island, a resort island in southern Queens

1938 Hurricane Nearly 200 people were killed when the Category 3 hurricane swept over Long Island and into New England. It caused millions of dollars of damages in NYC, where it killed 10 people and destroyed hundreds of trees in Central Park

1954, Carol The hurricane, which had sustained winds of more than 100mph, hit eastern Long Island and caused major flooding throughout New York City

1955, Connie and Diane Rain from the two hurricanes caused flooding across the city. There were more than 200 deaths in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey

1960, Donna The hurricane created an 11-foot storm tide in the New York Harbor, inflicting extensive pier damage

1972, Agnes The tropical storm flooded areas from North Caroline to New York and caused 122 deaths and more than $6 billion in damage

1985, Gloria Serious damage was inflicted on Long Island

1996, Bertha The tropical storm washed out the city in July 1966

1999, Floyd The tropical storm hit New Jersey and New York with 60mph winds and dropped up to 15 inches of rain. Flash flooding forced residents from their homes

2011, Irene The hurricane was downgraded to a tropical storm just before hitting the city, which had issued mandatory evacuation orders for those living along the coast. Up to 7 inches of rain fell as winds reached 65 mph. It inflicted an estimated $100 million in damages

 Source: Information from the New York City and Nassau County Offices of Emergency Management  ‘