Presidential campaign kicked back into action, with US president touring area ravaged by superstorm Sandy.
Barack Obama, the US president, is paying a visit to the state of New Jersey to see the damage done by superstorm Sandy, as the East Coast picks up the pieces in the wake of widespread destruction.
Obama, campaigning for re-election, landed in New Jersey on Wednesday to start a tour of areas devastated by flooding triggered by superstorm Sandy, after visiting Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters earlier in the day.
Sandy killed at least 18 people in York, according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, while at least 40 storm-related deaths were reported nationwide.
Accompanied by the federal government’s emergency relief director Craig Fugate, Obama linked up with New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie for the tour, appearing to re-start campagning he said he had put off until Thursday ahead of Tuesday’s national vote.
Christie, an outspoken ally of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has been effusive in his praise of Obama’s handling of the devastating storm, raising eyebrows in his own party.
As the campaign returned to normal on Wednesday, Al Jazeera’s John Terrett reported from Egg Harbor Township in New Jersey.
“He’s going to tour New Jersey to see the damage,” Terrett reported. “While all this [the storm] is going on, both men [Obama and Romney] are trying to seem presidential.”
Pleas for donations
The governor greeted the president at the steps of Air Force One after his short flight from Washington and the two men boarded Obama’s Marine One helicopter for an aerial tour of the disaster area.
Obama left the campaign trail on Monday to return to Washington to manage the federal relief effort.
Romney, who had also mostly suspended campaigning out of sensitivity to storm victims, was back stumping for voters, in Florida, on Wednesday, albeit on a muted level.
“Please, if you have an extra dollar or two, please, send them along and keep the people who have been in harm’s way … in your thoughts and prayers,” he told about 2,000 people in a Florida airport hangar, as American Red Cross donation messages flashed on large video screens.
“We come together in times like this, and we want to make sure they have a speedy and quick recovery from their financial and, in many cases personal, loss,” Romney added.
Romney about-turn
The visit by Obama to FEMA was his second visit in four days. He told reporters on Sunday that the government would “respond big and respond fast” after the massive storm made landfall.
Only last year, as Romney tacked to the right while battling for his party’s nomination, he appeared to suggest in a debate that the FEMA should be shut down and its responsibilities left to the states.
Now, a week before election day, in the wake of a massive disaster, Romney’s campaign is reassuring voters that his administration would not leave disaster victims in the lurch.
A spokesperson for Romney’s campaign, Amanda Henneberg, promised that “a Romney-Ryan [the Republican vice presidential candidate] administration will always ensure that disaster funding is there for those in need. Period”.
Meanwhile, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said limited subway service would begin on Thursday, four days after shutting down ahead of the arrival of Sandy, the storm that brought unprecedented flooding to the world’s
financial capital.
Limited service on suburban commuter rail lines serving Long Island to the east and Westchester County and Connecticut to the north will resume on Wednesday afternoon, Cuomo said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Fuel supplies on the East Coast showed signs of improving on Wednesday as power was restored to a key energy hub in New Jersey, although a key pipeline may remain out of service until Friday.
The second-largest refinery was unable to say when it might resume production.
Phillips 66 confirmed it had restored power to its 238,000-barrel-per-day Bayway refinery in New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge caused “some” flooding at the plant and cut its power.
But executives provided no damage assessment or time frame for resuming output.
“There was some flooding in low lying areas of the refinery but flood waters have since receded and as of this morning power has been restored at Bayway,” Phillips 66’s chief financial officer Greg Maxwell said on a call with analysts.
“We are currently assessing the condition of the assets in a decision on resuming operations will be made once this
asessionment is complete.”
Trading returns
In New York, the stock exchange opened on Wednesday morning, Al Jazeera’s Scott Heidler reported.
“It’s not going to happen overnight. In some cases, it might take several weeks,” he said from New York, noting ongoing problems with the buses and subway system.
Political analyst Edward Wyckoff Williams told Al Jazeera that the storm is likely to have an impact on the election.
“Turnout is very critical in the state of Pennsylvania and Michigan,” he added.
Extreme weather conditions in those states could prevent some voters on election day, Williams said, but early voting could help balance the difference in Obama’s favour.
In the state of West Virginia, a legislative candidate was reported killed, the third casualty in accidents related to weather from superstorm Sandy.
Source: Aljazeera
