Plan B Forum

The death toll from Sandy keeps rising as swathes of the US East Coast battle to recover, three days after being smashed by the massive storm.

More than 80 people are now known to have died, 37 in New York City alone, and others remain missing.

About 4.5 million customers in 12 states are still without power, and chronic fuel shortages persist.

The National Guard is to deliver a million meals and bottled water to New Yorkers affected by the storm.

The number of dead in the US has exceeded the toll from the Caribbean, where 69 people were killed by Sandy.

The storm could cost the US $50bn (£31bn), according to forecasting firm Eqecat, doubling the previous estimate.

Under the Long Island Power Authority, more than 930,000 families are without power accounting for 90 percent of the total number of people on Long Island.

LIPA AND NATIONAL GRID RESTORE SERVICE TO NEARLY 600,000 CUSTOMERS AFFECTED BY HURRICANE SANDY; PROJECTS MOST CUSTOMERS WILL HAVE RESTORATION BY NOVEMBER 7th

(Uniondale, N.Y.) – LIPA and National Grid have restored service to approximately 600,000 customers affected by Hurricane Sandy, meaning well over the 1 million customers who lost power due to the devastating storm are now restored.

Tens of thousands of customers are being restored each day and LIPA expects to have over 700,000 customers restored by the end of the day on Sunday, November 4th.

By end of the day Wednesday, November 7th, 90% of all LIPA customers whose homes and businesses were affected by power outages should be restored. Additionally, those customers in the most severely damaged areas in and around Brookville, St. James and Port Jefferson should expect restoration in up to another week or more.