Survivors of Sandy push toward normalcy, search for the missing

(CNN) -- Sandy's grim death toll mounted Thursday, November 1st as survivors struggled to regain a semblance of the normalcy that the storm swept away this week when it struck the Northeast.

The storm was blamed for the deaths of 157 people -- at least 88 of them in the United States, two in Canada and 67 in the Caribbean.

The bodies of two children were found Thursday. The boys, ages 2 and 4, had been riding with their mother on Staten Island when the storm surge swamped their SUV, authorities said.

They were found Thursday morning "maybe a block or two from where (their mother) lost them," Borough President James Molinaro said.

Boats were beached on front yards in the Staten Island neighborhood of Great Kills. Several people were missing.

Sandy claimed at least 37 lives in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters Thursday.

While some mourned, others focused on the struggle facing the living -- as authorities in nine states worked to restore basic services such as public transit and electricity.

In New York City, nearly 500,000 customers were without power. In Manhattan, many of the 220,000 customers without electricity were south of Midtown's 34th Street. Parts of Queens and Staten Island also had no electricity Thursday. "Restoring power will take a lot of time," the mayor said.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in a letter to utilities, warned of consequences if authorities discover that they failed to prepare properly. "Under such circumstances, I would direct the Public Service Commission to commence a proceeding to revoke your certificates," he wrote.

That message was not lost on its intended targets. "We're doing our damnedest to get our power back as quickly as possible," said John Miksad, senior vice president of electric operations at Con Ed.

New York's vast transit network remains hobbled. The Metropolitan Transit Authority said 14 of the city's 23 subway lines were running and a flotilla of 4,000 buses was attempting to take up the slack. For some, Thursday's commute into Manhattan from the outer boroughs took five hours.

Bloomberg predicted that would ease as tunnels are cleared of water, power is restored to subway lines and ferries resume service.

Getting water out of the tunnels is "one of the main orders of business right now," Cuomo said.

But Broadway theaters reopened Thursday, and organizers vowed to hold the New York City Marathon as scheduled on Sunday. Event organizer Mary Wittenberg said the race wouldn't divert resources from the recovery.

Three days after Sandy barreled ashore in southern New Jersey, search-and-rescue crews were going door-to-door in some neighborhoods looking for people, particularly the elderly, who may have been stranded by the power outages, the debris and remaining floodwater.

Sandy killed at least six people in New Jersey, said Gov. Chris Christie, who had warned people in low-lying areas to evacuate.

Many survivors still need basic supplies.

Christie asked for patience as crews worked to restore electricity to more than 2 million power company customers.

The federal government shipped one million meals Thursday to New York, where National Guard troops were distributing them to people in need, Cuomo told reporters.

The storm dumped up to three feet of snow in West Virginia and Maryland, leaving thousands without power.

Nearly 3.5 million customers across the eastern United States were still in the dark Thursday, down from nearly 8 million in its immediate aftermath.

By early Thursday, Sandy's remnants had headed into Canada.

The National Weather Service predicted that a nor'easter is possible next week from the mid-Atlantic states into New England. But the forecast said the storm would be far weaker than Sandy.

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