Sandy: Giuliani hails 'resilient' New York

2012-10-31 09:52

Sandy aftermath. (File, AFP)

Sydney - Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani on Wednesday hailed the city's resilience and predicted it would quickly bounce back from the devastation of superstorm Sandy.

But Giuliani, who served two terms from 1994 to 2001 and gained international praise for his leadership during the 9/11 terror attacks, said the loss of life was hard to take.

At least 18 people were killed when Sandy hit New York. Officials say the death toll could mount with major search and rescue operations still underway.

Across the United States and Canada, at least 51 people died, according to an AP tally.

"Always, whenever these things happened when I was mayor or a private citizen, the real loss here is the loss of human life and unfortunately there has been a significant loss," he said in Sydney.

"The property damage, the loss of profits because businesses have closed, the loss of profits because the stock exchange is closed - you make all that up.

Best emergency response

"Knowing New York City, where resiliency is written in capital letters, they will more than make that up. But what you can never make up for is the people that have lost their lives."

Giuliani said he was comforted by knowing that New York City has "what I believe to be the best emergency response in the country".

In New York, firefighters battled blazes and floods on Tuesday, a day after the storm set off an explosion at a power station.

Scores of buildings were destroyed by fire or the record 4.2m storm surge.

Subway trains and buses remained suspended for a third day and hundreds of thousands of homes face up to a week without electricity.

John F Kennedy Airport should re-open on Wednesday, officials said, but other major airports had flooding and damage to clear up. The New York stock exchange was also to re-open Wednesday.

23 serious fires

Current Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned the death toll, at 18, toll could rise.

One man was crushed by a falling tree in the Queens area. Bloomberg said another person stepped in a puddle in which there was an electric wire and two people were found drowned in a flooded house.

New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo said police and national guard troops "saved hundreds of lives" in post-Sandy operations.

"The path of destruction that she left in her wake is going to be felt for quite some time," Bloomberg said. "This was a devastating storm, maybe the worst that we have ever experienced."

Firefighters battled 23 serious fires across the city, some of which continued to blaze on Tuesday, Bloomberg said.

Smoke lingered over many streets after a huge fire tore through more than 80 homes in the Breezy Point district of Queens. Firemen in boats rescued about 25 people trapped by fire.

Spectacular explosion

Breezy Point is near Rockaway Beach, where firemen rescued several people trapped in their homes by waves that tore into the streets. Upturned cars were strewn across roads.

A spectacular explosion at a Manhattan electrical substation at the peak of the storm cut power to about 200 000 homes on the island.

About 300 000 other homes in New York lost electricity as Sandy tore down trees and flooded power transmission facilities.

"Don't be surprised if it takes a week" to get power back, warned Con Edison electricity company spokesperson Alfonso Quiroz.

Many roads remained blocked by trees, and road tunnels were inundated by floodwaters that slowly receded after the city was battered. Bridges leading out of Manhattan were only open to emergency services.

Some subway stations had water above platform level and it was expected to be several days before trains were fully operational again.

Police and ambulance sirens dominated the diminished morning traffic. Pedestrians had to avoid trees torn up by the wind gusts of up to 153km/h that hit the city.

Patients evacuated

The streets of Lower Manhattan were pitch black until the sun rose. But the power cuts left giant apartment blocks without elevator service.

"I have no water, no gas. I walked down 20 flights of stairs to get to street level and now I must try to get to the office," said accountant Joseph Warburton as he headed for Midtown along Third Avenue.

The roads were strewn with uprooted trees, telephone booths ripped off their foundations and traffic lights blown down with wires left exposed.

New York University's Tisch Hospital had to evacuate more than 200 patients, including 20 babies, when it lost power and its backup generator failed. Long lines of ambulances were still taking patients away on Tuesday morning.

Safety experts also nervously watched a crane over a 90-story luxury apartment block that buckled in the gale-force winds.

The boom of the crane swayed in the fierce gusts over streets near Central Park, which police and fire services evacuated because of the risk that it could fall.

In another spectacular demonstration of its power, the hurricane pulled off the facade of a three-story building in the Chelsea district. No injuries were reported.

- Are you there or have you been affected? Send us your eyewitness accounts and photos.

- AFP