Urgency added to superstorm recovery as temps drop

NEW YORK (AP) — Storm victims went to church Sunday to pray for relief and give thanks for their deliverance as cold weather settling in across the New York metropolitan area compounded the misery for people already struggling with severe gasoline shortages and power outages.

Hundreds of parishioners in parkas, scarves and boots packed the pews and stood in the aisles for Mass at a chilly Church of St. Rose in storm-ravaged Belmar, N.J., where the floodwaters had receded but the streets were slippery with strong-smelling mud. Firefighters and police officers sat in the front rows and drew applause.

Roman Catholic Bishop David O'Connell of the Trenton Diocese said he had no good answer for why God would allow the destruction that Superstorm Sandy caused. But he assured parishioners: "There's more good, and there's more joy, and there's more happiness in life than there is the opposite. And it will be back. And we will be back."

With temperatures dipping into the 30s overnight and close to 700,000 homes and businesses in New York City, its northern suburbs and Long Island still without electricity six days after the storm, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned that many homes are becoming uninhabitable and that tens of thousands of people are going to need other places to stay.

Over the weekend, the city opened warming shelters in areas without power and Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged elderly people without heat to move to them. The city also began handing out 25,000 blankets to those who insisted on staying in their homes.

"Please, I know sometimes people are reticent to take advantage of services. The cold really is something that is dangerous," Bloomberg said.

Staten Island resident Sara Zavala had power and was relying on a propane heater, but she was using it only during the day; she didn't want to go to sleep with it on at night.

"When I woke up, I was like, 'It's freezing.' And I thought, 'This can't go on too much longer,'" Zavala said. "And whatever this is we're breathing in, it can't be good for you. Mildew and chemicals and gasoline."

After the abrupt cancellation of Sunday's New York City Marathon, some of those who had been planning to run the 26.2-mile race through the city streets instead headed to hard-hit Staten Island to help storm victims.

Thousands of other runners from such countries as Italy, Germany and Spain poured into Central Park to hold impromptu races of their own. A little more than four laps through the park amounted to a marathon.

"A lot of people just want to finish what they've started," said Lance Svendsen, organizer of a group called Run Anyway.

Though New York and New Jersey bore the brunt of the destruction, at its peak, the storm reached 1,000 miles across, killed more than 100 people in 10 states, knocked out power to 8.5 million homes and businesses and canceled nearly 20,000 flights. Damage has been estimated $50 billion, making Sandy the second most expensive storm in U.S. history, behind Hurricane Katrina.

More than 900,000 homes and businesses in New Jersey were still without electricity.

With fuel deliveries cut off by storm damage and many metropolitan-area gas stations lacking the electricity needed to operate their pumps, drivers waited in line for hours for a chance at a fill-up, snapping at each other and honking their horns in frustration.

At a gas station in Mount Vernon, N.Y., north of New York City, 62 cars were lined up around the block Sunday morning even though it was closed and had no fuel.

"I heard they might be getting a delivery. So I came here and I'm waiting," said the first driver in line, Earl Tuck. He had been there at least two hours by 9 a.m., and there was no delivery truck in sight. But he said he would stick it out.

The cashier at the station, Ahmed Nawaz, said he wasn't sure when the pumps might be running again. "We are expecting a delivery. But yesterday we weren't expecting one, and we got one. So I don't know," he said.

Bloomberg said that resolving the gas shortages could take days. Across northern New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie imposed odd-even gas rationing that recalled the gasoline crisis of the 1970s.

Fears of crime, especially at night in darkened neighborhoods, persisted. Officers in the Midland Beach section of Staten Island early Saturday saw a man in a Red Cross jacket checking the front doors of unoccupied houses and arrested him on a burglary charge.

After complaints about people posing as utility workers to gain access to people's homes, police on Long Island reminded residents that most repair work will be done outside so legitimate workers usually have no need to enter a home.

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Associated Press writers Ben Nuckols in Wall, N.J.; Katie Zezima in Jersey City, N.J.; Jim Fitzgerald in Mount Vernon, N.Y.; and Verena Dobnik, AJ Connelly, Cara Anna and Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this report.