Total Nightmare Scenario Coming To The Northeast After The Flood Comes The Freeze: Tens Of Thousands Need Housing Says Cuomo, As NorEaster Approaches

First the flood, now the freeze (and the lack of fuel and gas and heating just making it much worse). And for tens of thousands of residents of New York and New Jersey this means that as many as 40,000 will need to find alternative housing, especially ahead of Wednesday when a Nor’easter formation is expected to hit the Tristate area and bring even more freezing rain and cold to the region. From Reuters: “Tens of thousands of people affected by superstorm Sandy could soon need housing as cold weather descends on the state of New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday. Cuomo, in a televised press conference nearly a week after the storm hit the U.S. East Coast, said the fuel shortages are improving but problems will persist for “a number of days.”" Elsewhere, and also from Reuters: “Victims of superstorm Sandy on the U.S. East Coast struggled against the cold early on Sunday amid fuel shortages and power outages even as officials fretted about getting voters displaced by the storm to polling stations for Tuesday’s presidential election. Overnight, near-freezing temperatures gripped the U.S. northeast. At least two more victims were found in New Jersey, one dead of hypothermia, as the overall death toll from one of worst storms in U.S. history climbed to at least 112. Fuel supplies continued to rumble toward disaster zones and electricity was slowly returning to darkened neighborhoods after a storm that hit the coast last Monday. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it would be days before power is fully restored and fuel shortages end.”

All of this will be exacerbated as a Nor’easter moves along the Eastern Seaboard and is expected to hit New Jersey and New York in several days:  

A “significant” nor’easter is likely to hit Sandy-battered areas of the Northeast by Thursday, the National Weather Service said in an update Sunday. 

FEMA and Red Cross officials have ordered more resources ahead of the storm, while New York City is dealing with a shortage of fuel oil and steam to heat buildings as temperatures began dipping into the 20s and power remained out for hundreds of thousands. 

At the very least, the service’s prediction center stated, there is “a very real possibility of heavy rain and strong winds along the coast from Virginia to Maine.” 

Snow is likely in the interior and some models “do bring some snow all the way to the coast as far south as Virginia,” it warned.

That all of this is happening two days ahead of the presidential election is merely adding to the chaos:

 

President Barack Obama, neck-and-neck in opinion polls with Republican challenger Mitt Romney, ordered emergency response officials to cut through government “red tape” and work without delay to help affected areas return to normal.

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