Hurricane Sandy Barrels Region, Leaving Battered Path

As Hurricane Sandy churned inland as a downgraded storm, residents up and down the battered mid-Atlantic region woke on Tuesday to lingering waters, darkened homes and the daunting task of cleaning up from once-in-a-generation storm surges and their devastating effects.

Power remained out for roughly six million people, including a large swath of Manhattan. Early risers stepped out into debris-littered streets that remained mostly deserted as dawn shed light on the extent of the damage. Bridges remained closed, and seven subway tunnels under the East River were flooded. Other mass transit service, including commuter rails, was also still suspended.

A wind-tossed construction crane atop one of the tallest buildings in New York City still dangled 80 stories over West 57th Street, across the street from Carnegie Hall, after coming loose during the storm.

The storm was the most destructive in the 108-year history of New York’s subway system, said Joseph J. Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in an early morning statement.

“We are assessing the extent of the damage and beginning the process of recovery,” he said, but did not provide a timetable for restoring transit service to a paralyzed city.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey called the damage to his state “incalculable” and said the Jersey Shore had been “devastated.” As he spoke on a series of morning talk shows on Tuesday, rescue teams were rushing to the aid of those stranded in Atlantic City and in areas of Bergen County where he said tidal waters had overwhelmed a protective natural berm.

At least 11 deaths — including 7 in the New York region — were tied to the storm, which toppled trees and sparked fires in several areas, state authorities said. Falling limbs became deadly bludgeons in three of the New York deaths and two in Morris County, N.J., where The Associated Press reported a man and a woman were killed when a tree fell on their car Monday evening.

The storm made landfall at 8 p.m. on Monday. Reclassified as a post-tropical cyclone, it weakened as it passed west across southern Pennsylvania, though it still packed maximum sustained winds of 65 miles per hour, the National Hurricane Center said. It was expected to turn north and head for Canada late on Tuesday.

The storm had picked up speed as it roared over the Atlantic Ocean on Monday, grinding life to a halt for millions of people in more than a half-dozen states, with extensive evacuations that turned shorefront neighborhoods into ghost towns.

Hurricane-force winds extended up to 175 miles from the center of the storm; tropical-storm-force winds spread out 485 miles from the center. Forecasters said tropical-storm-force winds could stretch all the way north to Canada and all the way west to the Great Lakes. Heavy snow was expected in some states.

Businesses and schools were closed, roads were closed, and more than 13,000 airline flights were canceled. Even the Erie Canal was shut down.

Subways were shut down from Boston to Washington, as were Amtrak and the commuter rail lines. Flights were canceled at airports across the East Coast, including the three major airports in the New York City area.

In Breezy Point on the Rockaways in Queens, nearly 200 firefighters were still battling a blaze on Tuesday morning that destroyed at least 50 tightly-packed homes in the beach community. A Fire Department spokesman said the area was “probably the most flooded part of the city, so there are all sorts of complications.”

The surging water also caused extensive complications at NYU Langone Medical Center when a backup power system failed on Monday night, forcing the evacuation of patients to other facilities. Backup power also failed at Coney Island Hospital in southern Brooklyn, though critical patients had been evacuated in advance of the storm.

Fatalities in Several States

Reporting on the storm was contributed by Peter Applebome, Charles V. Bagli, Joseph Berger, Nina Bernstein, Cara Buckley, Russ Buettner, David W. Chen, Annie Correal, Sam Dolnick, Christopher Drew, David W. Dunlap, Ann Farmer, Lisa W. Foderaro, Joseph Goldstein, David M. Halbfinger, Elizabeth A. Harris, Winnie Hu, Jon Hurdle, Thomas Kaplan, Corey Kilgannon, John Leland, Randy Leonard, Patrick McGeehan, Jad Mouawad, Colin Moynihan, Sarah Maslin Nir, Sharon Otterman, William K. Rashbaum, Ray Rivera, Liz Robbins, Wendy Ruderman, Nate Schweber, Michael Schwirtz, Mosi Secret, Kirk Semple, Joe Sharkey, Brian Stelter, Kate Taylor, Julie Turkewitz, Matthew L. Wald, Michael Wilson, Michael Winerip, Vivian Yee and Kate Zernike.

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Nokia says shipping new Lumia smartphones this week

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Daniel Day-Lewis gives poet dad's work to Oxford

LONDON (AP) — Actor Daniel Day-Lewis is donating papers belonging to his father, the poet Cecil Day-Lewis, to Oxford University.

The archive, which fills 54 boxes, includes early drafts of the poet's work, as well as letters from actor John Gielgud and famous literary figures such as W.H. Auden, Robert Graves and Philip Larkin.

Daniel Day-Lewis stars this year in the much-anticipated film "Lincoln," about the assassinated U.S. president. He and his sister, Tamasin, said Tuesday they are thrilled that their father's papers will be housed at Oxford's Bodleian Libraries and become accessible to students and researchers.

Cecil Day-Lewis, who studied classics and became poetry professor at Oxford, was appointed the U.K. poet laureate in 1968. He also wrote mystery novels and stories under the name of Nicholas Blake. He died in 1972.

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My Story: Running for the Music (on My Playlist)

I have always hated running.

A steep hill does not entice me. My labored breathing makes me sound the way I feel: miserable. To keep up with my life, I’m always in a flailing hurry, so why would I want my exercise to mimic that?

I have no idea. Nonetheless, the other chilly morning when I went out for a run, I wore a long-sleeved race T-shirt: Seven Mile Run, Central Park, Feb. 1, 1987.

I’ve been running at least since then — with years lost to knee and bunion surgeries, physical therapy for running-induced lower back pain as well as flings with treadmills and exercycles.

That’s a long time to be doing something you hate as aggressively as I do.

But I do not run to run. I run to listen — which real runners consider not only dangerous but apostasy.

I can run only with music in my head, and heart. For decades I’ve fussed over playlists, a nod to my years as a college D.J., when free-form FM radio was in ascent. The music lifts my spirits, eases up on my knees, pushes me to one more song.

From the 30-minute Walkman cassettes I made with a turntable and a tape recorder to the hour-plus playlists on my iPod, the lists reflect changes in my taste, my life, my runs. They have been my personalized soundtrack.

The tumult of a single woman in New York (“Love Stinks!” J. Geils Band). Rent struggles (“Pressure Drop,” the Maytals). New boyfriend (“Kiss,” Prince and the Revolution).

Years later, a salute to my first daughter: “My Girl.” Then she turned 4 (“She Drives Me Crazy,” Fine Young Cannibals). Next, her sister, my brown-eyed girl, whom Katy Perry now conjures with “Firework.”

The author’s “Tumultuous Life of Single Woman in the City” playlist, circa 1989. (You’ll need to download Spotify to listen.)

Oh, right, my husband. Serious runner. He would never listen to music while charging up hills. But I include nods to his taste: Santana’s “Smooth.”

Radio was always my musical lifeline. In high school, I interned at a local station. D.J.'s there critiqued one another’s sets. (“Carrie Anne,” the Hollies, followed by “Carry On,” Crosby Stills Nash and Young? Cheap. Trick.)

When I went on air at my college station, I realized that although I couldn’t personally make music, I could make music personal. On Sunday mornings, I would play hangover-recovery music from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (“Good Morning Little Schoolgirl,” Taj Mahal). For the 2 a.m. to 6 a.m shift, I would play term-paper-due, all-nighter music (“Midnight Rider,” the Allman Brothers Band).

After I graduated, jobs for this niche talent were few and unsalaried. To stay in the music conversation by proxy, I wrote about the radio industry, and reviewed and interviewed musicians.

But eventually journalism moved me to covering domestic violence and murder trials. My relationship with music and an audience — listeners or readers — disappeared.

I’d heard that joining the New York Road Runners Club was a good way to meet guys. So, with skepticism, I started running.

Blisters! Worse still, it bored me silly.

But at the path around the Central Park reservoir, I spotted runners with headphones. Music? I could be a D.J. again, programming sets for a devoted listenership of one.

Ever since, my playlists have followed a few rules. Joy is essential, a great hook critical, tempo crucial. Because I’m too lazy to stretch, the first songs are warm-ups, an invitation to do this thing. I heartily recommend “Sexual Healing” (Marvin Gaye).

The lists are intuitively shaped to my pace. Some are more knee-forgiving than others. Within 10 minutes, the backbeat picks up. I select songs long enough to build running momentum, but not so long that I quickly flag. The urgent patterns of one drummer lead into the smack-smash response of the next (“I Wanna Be Sedated,” the Ramones; “Middle of the Road,” the Pretenders).

Do you have a favorite playlist for workouts? Please share it in the comments section.

You can follow Booming via RSS here or visit nytimes.com/booming.

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