Sandy Aftermath Live Blog: Death Toll Climbs, NYC Power Slowly Being Restored, Damage Total Mounts

[Update 06:00 a.m. ET] Weather forecasters have predicted that a nor'easter was possible for mid-Atlantic and New England states by next Thursday. A nor’easter has characteristics similar to a hurricane. The National Weather Service's forecast center in College Park, Maryland, which put out the long-range notice, added that it was rather too early to get worried because the forecast could change before it hits late next week, the Associated Press reported.

[Update 05.30 a.m. ET] In 16 states and Washington, D.C., 52,000 homeowners have filed insurance claims, CBS News has reported. About 10,000 claims have been filed in New Jersey.

[Update 04:15 a.m. ET] Shortage of gas, which affected New York and New Jersey four days after Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast, disrupted rescue operations in many places which were suffering from power outages.

On Thursday night, New York City officials reached an agreement with a major supplier to ensure emergency operations like fire, police and sanitation work would continue uninterrupted, the New York Times reported.

[Update 03:15 a.m. ET] Flight services at JFK, Newark and LaGuardia airports are expected to come to normal by Friday. The three major airports in the New York area resumed services Thursday after they were closed in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.

Delta Air Lines had announced they would operate about half of its roughly 260 flights at LaGuardia Thursday while its services at JFK were near the normal schedule, Reuters reported quoting the airline spokesman.

United Continental also returned to a "more-or-less normal schedule" of flights at Newark, New Jersey and JFK while New York-based JetBlue Airways said it planned to operate 80 percent of its total flights Thursday with a plan to restore full services by Saturday.

American Airlines has planned to gradually reach the full schedules at LaGuardia and Newark within the week.

[Update 02:20 a.m. ET] New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision to proceed with the world’s largest marathon Sunday has drawn criticism from several quarters.

Bloomberg justified his decision saying there were thousands of visitors from out of town who have come to participate in the New York City marathon and vowed that the race will not divert any resources from the superstorm Sandy victims. He said he expected power to be restored fully in downtown Manhattan by race day.

[Update 01:20 a.m. ET] The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended the search for Robin Walbridge, 63, the missing captain of the replica tall ship HMS Bounty which sank before dawn Monday in hurricane-stirred waters off the coast of North Carolina, Reuters has reported.

Fourteen crew members were rescued Monday, but Walbridge, who had sailed the Bounty for about 17 years, and another crew member Claudene Christian were washed overboard before the Coast Guard could rescue them. Christian, 42, was later found and was pronounced dead at a hospital.

[Update 01:00 a.m. ET] Rail carrier Amtrak has announced that it will operate limited Acela Express and Northeast Regional services between Washington and Boston Friday. Service between New York and Boston will be resumed Friday.

On Thursday evening, it operated eight trains between New York’s Penn Station and Washington, Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman was reported as saying by Bloomberg.

[Update 11:30 p.m. ET] The death toll from Superstorm Sandy rose to 95 and officials said that the number could rise, Reuters reported. Rescuers continued to search houses in the coastal towns.

A limited number of New York subway trains were operated and the trains were crowded.

[Update 10:10 p.m. ET] New York, often called "the city of nations, in the nation of nations,” is as diverse and as welcoming as any city in the world. If you want to see an experiment concerning whether people of different faiths, races and cultures can live together, you need look no further than New York City. That was one reason the United Nations headquarters was placed in the city.

That said, the general sense in the city as it approached its fifth day of recovery from a horrific storm, was that certain outlooks, or points of view, probably would not be as welcomed by New Yorkers, as they had been in the past. These include: climate change deniers, those who believe that man-made barriers in New York Harbor would not help prevent such water-based catastrophies, and those who believe the city’s electric grid and transportation system are not in need of upgrades, strengthening and repairs.

[Update 9:15 p.m. ET] Of all the areas in/near New York City, Hoboken, N.J., a trendy and popular suburb just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, may have been hit the hardest, along with Breezy Point, N.Y., which suffered an extensive fire that destroyed more than 100 homes.

Floodwaters finally receded Thursday from the streets of Hoboken leaving behind a stinky mess of submerged basements and cars littering the sidewalks.

"The water was rushing in. It was like a river coming," Benedicte Lenoble, a photo researcher from Hoboken, told Reuters. "Now it's a mess everywhere. There's no power. The stores aren't open. Recovery? I don't know."

New Jersey favorite sons Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi, along with Christina Aguilera, Billy Joel and other stars, will headline a benefit concert for storm victims Friday on NBC television, the network announced.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency agreed to cover 100 percent of emergency power and public transportation costs through November 9 for affected areas of New York and New Jersey, up from the traditional share of 75 percent, Reuters reported.

More than 36,000 disaster survivors from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have applied for federal disaster assistance and more than $3.4 million in direct assistance has already been approved, White House spokesman Jay Carney told Reuters.

The U.S. Department of Defense was airlifting power restoration experts and trucks from California to New York to assist millions of people still living in darkness.

[Update 8:35 p.m. ET] In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie said Thursday that power will likely be restored to the state sooner than eight to 10 days, the previous estimate from utility companies, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Christie said states around the country were sending thousands of utility workers to New Jersey – as they are to other deeply-affected Northeast states - to help repair the state's electrical grid, The Journal reported. The influx of workers is so large, Christie added, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to build temporary housing facilities for them at Fort Monmouth.

[Update 7:35 p.m ET] In the nation’s largest city, also the financial capital of the world, New York City subway trains crawled back to limited service Thursday after being shut down since Sunday but the lower half of Manhattan still lacked power and surrounding areas such as Staten Island, the New Jersey shore and the city of Hoboken remained crippled from a record storm surge and flooding, Reuters reported.

At least 93 people died in the "superstorm" that ravaged the northeastern United States on Monday. Officials said the number could climb as rescuers searched house-by-house through coastal towns, Reuters reported.

"I worked all my life, and everything I had is right there," said Bob Stewart, 59, told Reuters, while standing on the Jersey Shore beach in the town of Seaside Heights and looking at the pile of debris that was once his home. "I put my life right there."

[Update 6:50 p.m. ET] Power has been restored to many cities and states outside of Hurricane Sandy's hardest hit areas, and widespread power outages in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are slowly being restored.

Power has been nearly completely restored in Washington, D.C., and North Carolina. Virginia, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts each have less than 25,000 customers without power. New Jersey still has 1.76 customers without electricity, down from 2.7 million earlier this week. In New York City, there are 1.5 million without power, down from 2.2 million, and service in lower Manhattan, which suffered a near blackout, is expected to be restored by Saturday. The Associated Press published a complete list of power outages and fatalities in those states affected by Hurricane Sandy.

[Update 6:00 p.m. ET] In Washington Thursday, public policy officials and storm experts said the U.S. government has for years underestimated how vulnerable the nation is to flooding, and given climate change, the likelihood of extreme weather, including damage from higher sea levels, The Washington Post reported.

"Our climate is changing," the mayor wrote in an op-ed on Bloomberg.com. "And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be -- given this week’s devastation -- should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.

[Update 2:33 p.m. ET] The dollar cost of Hurricane Sandy is more than double what was previously estimated, the Associated Press reported Thursday. Eqecat, a forecasting firm, has estimated that the economic toll of the devastating storm could reach $50 billion on the high end, with a cost of between $10 and $20 billion for insurance companies. The firm had previously projected the damage to be up to $20 billion total.

[Update 1:45 p.m. ET] Con Edison has confirmed that customers in lower Manhattan will have power restored by Saturday after erroneous reports circulated that the restoration could be delayed for another week. It appears that the source of the confusion was a statement by Con Ed announcing that power would be restored to most affected by NYC outages by Nov. 10 or 11. That statement was likely in reference to all affected customers, including those outside of Manhattan who are supplied electricity through overhead power lines, which Con Ed had previously stated would take longer to restore.

[Update 12:10 p.m. ET] Power outages due to Hurricane Sandy have surpassed the previous record set after Hurricane Irene in 2011. Electricity outage levels hit 8.5 million after this year's storm, breaking last year's record of 8.4 million, according to a Reuters report. With intense recovery efforts underway on the east coast, close to half of those affected by power outages have had service restored, with 4.7 million residential and business customers in 15 states currently without power.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg praised the MTA in a Thursday afternoon news briefing for restoring partial subway service in time for the morning commute, and said that despite waving subway fares to encourage the use of public transportation, there was still high traffic congestion in the city. The mayor added that he hoped to lift by the weekend the current restriction on passenger traffic on bridges into Manhattan, which requires a minimum of three passengers in private vehicles -- excluding taxis, handicapped vehicles, and commercial vehicles -- in order to cross into Manhattan.

[Update 11:15 a.m. ET] NBC will broadcast a telethon Friday night to raise funds for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts, NBC Universal announced on Thursday. Matt Lauer of "Today" will host the telethon, which will air on NBC, Bravo, CNBC, E!, G4, MSNBC, Style, Syfy and USA from 8 to 9 p.m. ET. A spokesperson for NBC Universal told the New York Times that stations not owned by the company will also be permitted to air the telethon and benefit concert. In 2005, NBC's concert and telethon to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina raised $50 million for the Red Cross.