The devastating aftermath of Superstorm Sandy began to emerge this morning as the death toll hit 50 and damage was expected to reach $50billion.
As the superstorm passed over the region, startling before-and-after pictures revealed what was left of the East Coast.
At first glance, New Jersey's Mantoloking Bridge appeared to be completely different highways - until it becomes clear that just one solitary house was left standing.
t first glance, New Jersey's Mantoloking Bridge appeared to be completely different highways - until it becomes clear that just one solitary house was left standing.
Before the storm: The horizon over the Mantoloking Bridge was once dotted with row after row of Atlantic vacation homes
Razed: Now the horizon in New Jersey is entirely altered following the devastating superstorm Sandy
Disaster zone: This aerial photograph shows the extent of the damage to the Breezy Point section of Queens, New York, now littered with burned-out homes
Apocalyptic scene: Firemen continue to pour water on smoldering fires on Beach Blvd in Breezy Point, New York. More than 100 homes were destroyed by fire after Sandy passed directly though the area
Completely destroyed: Fires ripped through around 130 homes on Breezy Point after the superstorm hit
Beachfront: A property in Rockaway, New York, somehow manages to remain upright despite having its innards swept away by the flood
Row after row of Atlantic vacation homes on the horizon were wiped out by the 900-mile storm following surging waters and winds which reached peaks of 95mph.
The colossal scale of the devastation was mounting today as the death toll continued to rise - 50 people were dead in the wake of the storm but that number was expected to grow as rescue missions and clear-up continued.
The cost was originally estimated at around $20billion but financial forecasters now expected it somewhere between $30 - $50billion of damage.
Sandy will likely be among the ten costliest hurricanes in U.S. history. It would still be far below the worst - Hurricane Katrina, which cost $108 billion in 2005.
Insured losses were expected to reach up to $15billion, according to NBC, before the additional toll of the damage done to uninsured buildings and infrastructure such as roads, bridges and transport systems.
However experts said a slightly slower economy in the coming weeks will likely be matched by reconstruction and repairs that will contribute to growth over time.
Some of those losses won't be easily made up. Restaurants that lose two or three days of business, for example, won't necessarily experience a rebound later. And money spent to repair a home may lead to less spending elsewhere.
He pledged to rebuild the Jersey Shore but said that a lot of it had been washed into the sea. Christie confirmed that six had died in the state and told residents of the Garden State to 'hang in'. He added that he didn't want to guess the cost of the damage but believed it would run into billions.
Shocked: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg views damage in the Breezy Point area of Queens yesterday
Another world: This community north of Seaside, New Jersey lies covered in sand after the superstorm blew through
Lying in a heap: Boats cluster together at a marina in Brant Beach on Long Beach Island, New Jersey
Submerged: An image provided by the U.S. Coast guard shows flooded homes in Tuckerton, New Jersey
Inaccessible: One day on and a portion of Harvey Cedars on Long Beach Island remains underwater
Devastation: Debris lies strewn across the south shore of Staten Island, New York
Widespread damage: The south shore area of Staten Island was severely damaged by the strong winds and floods coming in from Atlantic
Grounded: A sailboat beached in Long Beach yesterday as shocked local residents head outside to inspect the damage
New Jersey's barrier islands were hit directly as Sandy made landfall on Monday night and were left with colossal damage due to their exposed location on the open ocean.
The gambling mecca of Atlantic City was battered by the storm with the historic boardwalk left in splinters after it was smashed by waves and torn up by the wind. The city's mayor Lorenzo Langford was denounced by Governor Christie after he advised people not to evacuate and 500 had remained in flimsy shelters, only a block from the beach.
Christie said on Monday that the decision was 'stupid and selfish’ because the precarious location of Atlantic City would place rescue workers in danger.
He said: 'I feel badly for the folks in Atlantic City who listened to him and sheltered in Atlantic City, and I guess my anger has turned to sympathy for those folks, and we’re in the midst now of trying to go in and save them.'
The Jersey Shore appeared completely flattened in the before-and-after shots. And in Hoboken, an entire fleet of New York city's iconic yellow cabs were almost entirely submerged by flood waters.
Around 120 miles to the south-west, New York City had its own pictorial record of the devastation.
A ferocious fire in Breezy Point, Queens, destroyed 111 homes. The New York Fire Department battled to save houses in a neighborhood that is home to hundreds of their fellow firefighters, plunging into neck-deep water and fighting winds to reach the raging inferno.
In Dumbo, Brooklyn, the painstakingly restored Jane's Carousel, which is a popular tourist attraction in the area, was badly damaged by flood waters and cut off on its own little island in Brooklyn Bridge Park.
Sandy, one of the biggest storms ever to hit the United States, roared ashore with fierce winds and heavy rain on Monday at 8pm (EST) and forced evacuations, shut down transport and interrupted the
presidential campaign.
presidential campaign.
New York City was all but closed off by car, train and air. The superstorm overflowed the city's waterfront, flooded the financial district, subway tunnels and cut power to hundreds of thousands. Power is expected to be fully restored in Manhattan and Brooklyn within four days.
The New York Stock Exchange will reopen for regular trading on Wednesday after being shut down for two days.
Most homeowners who suffered losses from flooding won't be able to benefit from their insurance policies.
Standard homeowner policies don't cover flood damage, and few homeowners have flood insurance.
Standard homeowner policies don't cover flood damage, and few homeowners have flood insurance.
No way out: Homes in Fenwick Island, Delaware, sit surrounded by floodwaters yesterday
Bethany Beach, Delaware, looks more like Venice yesterday. Bethany and nearby Fenwick Island appeared to be among the hardest-hit parts of the state
Stuck: Two cars sit abandoned in sand swept in by the superstorm onto Long Beach, New York
Closed: The South Ferry subway station in New York was knee-deep in seawater last night
Travel hub: The extensive damage to the subway station will take time to repair - officials are unable to estimate when it will reopen for business
Non-salvageable: A row of beachfront houses tilts backwards on the New Jersey coast
Beachfront: A house in Coney Island's Sea Gate community in New York lies covered in large rocks thrown up by the waves
But Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said they will offer help to borrowers whose homes were damaged or destroyed, who live in designated disaster areas and whose loans the mortgage giants own or guarantee.
Among other steps, mortgage servicers will be allowed to reduce the monthly payments of affected homeowners or require no payments from them temporarily.
Shipping and business travel has been suspended in areas of the Northeast. More than 15,000 flights have been grounded. On Tuesday, more than 6,000 flights were canceled, according to the flight-tracking service FlightAware.
More than 500 flights scheduled for Wednesday were also canceled. The three big New York airports were closed on Tuesday.
The 1,000-mile-wide storm lashed towns and cities up and down the East Coast, with cars floating down streets in New York City and the 911 system inundated with 10,000 calls every 30 minutes.
Blowing through: A satellite image showing Sandy's progress inland towards the Michigan area
Homes ripped apart: The facade of this New York apartment building was knocked off by Sandy
Upended: Fallen power lines lie across a road in Atlantic City
Shining through: The sun sets over the Robert Moses Causeway leading to Fire Island, New York, last night
Damaged goods: A man inspects the flood damage to a warehouse in Brooklyn, New York
Tossed around like toys: Boats like crumpled in a heap in a harbour on the south shore of Staten Island
Sodden: The interior of a State Island building completely destroyed by floods swept up by the superstorm
Waves from Hurricane Sandy crash over a sea wall and onto the door steps of houses on the Bayshore, Connecticut shoreline
The storm cut power to more than eight million homes and shut down 70 per cent of East Coast oil refineries. It inflicted worse-than-expected damage in the New York metro area - which produces about 10 per cent of economic output in the U.S.
President Obama, who will visit New Jersey tomorrow, declared the storm as a 'major disaster' as submerged streets were littered with debris and downed power lines, homes were razed and a tanker had washed ashore.
Mantoloking Bridge leads to the Jersey Shore village of Brick Township, home to more than 76,100 people. Dozens of people have been rescued from roofs of properties where areas were flooded with at least 6ft of seawater.
President Obama will join New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Wednesday for a helicopter tour of the ravaged state.
At press conference on Tuesday night at 7.30pm (EST) Governor Christie said: 'It was an overwhelming afternoon for me - very emotional for a boy who was brought up in this state.'
Soaked: Local residents walk through the flooded Hudson Street in Hackensack, New Jersey
Stark: Foundations and pilings are all that remain of brick buildings and a boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey
Smashed: A street sign stands near apartment buildings and destroyed large sections of the historic boardwalk
View from the sky: Video taken from a helicopter shows the devastation along Jersey Shore
Eye of the storm: New York was among the hardest hit by Superstorm Sandy. A fire broke out in Breezy Point, Queens, destroying between 80 and 100 houses
Battle: More than 190 firefighters have contained the six-alarm blaze fire in the Breezy Point section, but they are still putting out some pockets of fire
Washed up: A resident pushes a bicycle down a street covered in beach sand due to flooding from Superstorm Sandy in Long Beach, New York
Destruction: Cars floating after being pushed out a flooded basement in the city during last night's battering
Beached: A 168-foot water tanker, the John B. Caddell, sits on the shore where it ran aground on Front Street in the Stapleton neighborhood of New York's Staten Island
Fleet in the floods: Yellow cabs in a parking lot are surrounded by water after Superstorm Sandy struck Hoboken, New Jersey
Trashed: Cars float up from a car garage in a mixture of floodwater and gasoline in lower Manhattan as workers begin the process of pumping out the mess
Wrecked: A man looks at an uprooted tree which fell on a car when Superstorm Sandy swept through the Brooklyn borough of New York
A firefighter leaves a destroyed home in Pasadena, Maryland, where the homeowner was killed overnight when a tree fell on his home during superstorm Sandy
Battered: This home in Manalapan, Florida, was ripped up and ravaged by Sandy when the storm passed through
Ripped out: A tree rests on Mike and Kelle Barry's home in Annapolis, Maryland as Superstorm Sandy ripped through the East Coast
Understatement: A Whole Foods store in New York informs its customers that it is closed 'due to inclement weather'
Two women shop for groceries by torchlight in the Tribeca neighbourhood of New York after power outages caused large parts of the city to fall into darkness
Dangerous: A cordon is put up around scaffolding which collapsed in New York after Superstorm Sandy caused widespread damage in the city
Barrier: Water and debris block a section of South Street in lower Manhattan, in New York, which had been in the storm's path
Toppled: Pictures from Washington DC show how the wind has grabbed hold of trees and ripped them out by the trunk (above and below)
Crushed: This home on the Florida coast is surveyed by two men astonished by the scale of destruction Sandy has left
Powerful: Waves pound a lighthouse on the shores of Lake Erie, near Cleveland, Ohio on Tuesday
Broken home: A man and child look in disbelief at a collapsed house in the Cosey Beach neighborhood of East Haven, Connecticut
Aftermath: A rainbow and looming clouds appear over the sky in New York's Manhattan after the hurricane stormed the city
Wrecked: A construction site sinks into a large hole on South Street Seaport - the clean-up operation is expected to cost over £12 billion
Deluge: Water floods over the barriers in New York. The city's transit system, schools, the stock exchange and Broadway were also shut after a 13ft wall of water caused by the storm surge and high tides brought severe flooding to subways and road tunnels
Transformation: A subway station now resembles a river in one of the US's largest cities
Submerged: The lobby of Verizon's Corporate headquarters in Manhattan. The headquarter houses executive offices as well as some of the company's key telecom equipment that supports services to New York's financial district
Operation clean-up: Debris litters a flooded street in the Dumbo section of Brooklyn after the city awakens to the affects of Hurricane Sandy
Rubble: People in Atlantic City view the area where a 2000-foot section of the 'uptown' boardwalk was destroyed by flooding
Sand and debris cover a part of town near the ocean in New Jersey after serious flooding ravaged the coastline
Chaos: A boat moved by gushing waters rests on the tracks at Metro-North's Ossining Station on the Hudson Line
Sweep up: Workers clean up sheets of blown-out glass in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy - many store faces took a beating from the strong winds
Challenge: Firefighters tackle a blaze in the Breezy Point section of the Queens borough of New York, in which more than 80 homes were destroyed
Upsetting: Tom and Deidre Duffy look through the wreckage of their home at Breezy Point, in Queens, which was devastated by fire
Sandy in the Midwest: Waves slam against a breakwall at North Avenue Beach on Lake Michigan in Chicago this morning
Gone: Deidre Duffy studies all that is left of her home at Breezy Point, in the Queens borough of New York
Toy: A doll's head can be seen among the charred remains of a house destroyed by fire in the aftermath of the post-tropical storm
Left: A map showing track of Hurricane Sandy through New England, with inset showing projected rainfall totals through Wednesday night and right. mid-Atlantic states showing storm surge from the superstorm storm
View from above: This aerial photograph shows burned-out homes in the Breezy Point section of the Queens borough of New York after the fire
Water, water everywhere: An aerial view of flooding on the bay side of Seaside, New Jersey
Flooded areas: Highlighted areas show flooding in New York. An unprecedented 13-foot surge of seawater - 3 feet above the previous record - gushed into Gotham
A dead deer is pictured with driftwood and debris left by a combination of storm surge and high tide
Precarious: A crane attached to One57, a luxury apartment tower under construction in midtown Manhattan, hangs down after partially collapsing amid gusts from Sandy
Shock: Residents look over the remains of burned homes in the Rockaways section
Rescued: Hospital workers evacuate a patient Deborah Dadlani from NYU Langone Medical Center during Hurricane Sandy
No train service: Veronica De Souza posted this extraordinary picture ('via ninjapito') on Twitter of the 86th Street station with water above the platform
Aid at hand: An emergency operations centre in Fairfax County, Virginia, co-ordinates the mammoth response to the severe flooding caused by Sandy
Scene: A car passes a tree lying on power lines the morning after Hurricane Sandy hit Dartmouth, Massachusetts
Obstacle: A driver navigates under a downed tree and power lines in Newton, Massachusetts as dawn breaks
Split: The wall of this house in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, shows how hard the East Coast has been pummeled by Sandy
Smashed: A giant tree crosses a street, leaving it impassable for any vehicles in Ridgewood, New Jersey
Water world: The famous casinos of Atlantic City, New Jersey, were submeraged after superstorm Sandy hit land nearby
Lashed with rain: A van skids in the flooded streets of Atlantic city, where casinos are shuttered, tourists have and 500 are trapped in their homes
U.S. Route 30, the White Horse Pike, one of three major approaches to Atlantic City, New Jersey, is covered with water from Absecon Bay during the approach of Hurricane Sandy
A man stands on a dry patch of sidewalk on a flooded street as Hurricane Sandy moves up the coast
Battered by the boardwalk: An empty street in flooded Atlantic City, which has taken a direct hit from the superstorm, forcing residents to flee inland
Submerged: A car is covered by water near the Consolidated Edison power plant in New York, after Sandy knocked out power to at least 8million people, and large sections of the city were plunged into darkness
Terrifying episode: Heavy waves smash over the seawall in Winthrop, with the 911 system inundated with 10,000 calls every half hour
Sea life: A row of houses stands in floodwaters at Grassy Sound in North Wildwood, New Jersey, after the powerful storm lurched westwards and took dead aim at New Jersey and Delaware
Devastation: Bulldozers swing into action to clean up Fort Lauderdale after Sandy swept along the coast
Breached: Floodwaters from Sandy rush into the Port Authority bus terminal in New Jersey through an elevator shaft
Intense: A journalist battles to get to work in ravaged Atlantic City
A police car drives through a flooded street near the Atlantic City Convention Center on Monday
A flooded street between two casinos along the Boardwalk before the arrival of Hurricane Sandy as 'Frankenstorm' threatened to wreak havoc on the area with storm surges, driving rain and devastating winds
Pounding waves have already broken up sections of the Atlantic City boardwalk, according to photos posted to social media and discussion on police and fire scanners
Flooding begins to inundate a parking garage ahead of Hurricane Sandy as Governor Chris Christie's emergency declaration shut down the city's casinos and 30,000 residents were ordered to evacuate
A car sits in a flooded street near the ocean ahead of Hurricane Sandy today - and the worst is yet to come
A security guard stands outside the entrance of Caesar's Casino on the Atlantic City boardwalk, with doors covered with sheets of plywood for protection
Skyline: Brooklyn Bridge Park pictured here after it flooded following the arrival of Sandy, which has made landfall on the East Coast of the US
Flooding: Water rushes into the Carey Tunnel (previously the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel), caused by Sandy on Monday night in the financial district of New York
Flood water rushes into a below-ground carpark in New York's Financial District
Raging: More than 50 homes have been destroyed at Breezy Point in the Queens area of New York, as a result of Hurricane Sandy
We mourn for your loss, we pray for those alive and we hope for a brighter day tomorrow. Stay strong America, stay strong.
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