Sandy Hits Coast, Floods New York

NYC Sandy Storm

NEW YORK: As super-storm Sandy marched slowly inland, millions along the East Coast awoke Tuesday without power or mass transit, with huge swaths of the nation's largest city unusually vacant and dark.

New York City 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.

Hurricane Sandy

"This will be one for the record books," said John Miksad, senior vice president for electric operations at Consolidated Edison, which had more than 684,000 customers without power in and around New York City on Tuesday morning.

new york empire state sandy hurricane 2012

Greater New York's three major airports remained closed. Flights to and from the Northeastern U.S. will remain mostly grounded on Tuesday because of Superstorm Sandy, airlines said, with most carriers aiming to resume service on Wednesday. It could be days before some of the thousands of stranded travelers resume their journeys.

The storm had forced nearly 16,000 flight cancellations as of Tuesday morning, including more than 6,000 flights scheduled for Tuesday and 650 flights scheduled for Wednesday, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware.com.

Sandy Hits Coast, Floods New York