Children flocked to reopened schools across New York yesterday for the first time since superstorm Sandy, but colder weather piled on the misery for hundreds of thousands of people still lacking power.

The sight of yellow school buses crisscrossing the Big Apple marked a major step back to normality for a city that suffered unprecedented damage from the hurricane-strength storm, which struck a week ago.

About one million children were back at their desks, with only 101 schools out of 1,700 still shut due to storm damage or because they were being used as emergency shelters. Many of those are to open in new locations tomorrow.

Yesterday’s commute tested the recovering transit system to the maximum, with some passengers crammed into buses and trains, or walking down Manhattan sidewalks punctuated with growing piles of uncollected garbage.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority, which runs the buses and subway trains in New York, said the system was up to 80 per cent capacity.

Buses in neighbouring New Jersey were up to 90 per cent, but the major commuter rail link across the Hudson River to Manhattan remained shut.

With public transport still limited, more people than usual relied on cars – if they could find fuel. Despite improvements in restoring supplies, filling the tank remained a nightmare, with huge lines and rationing in New Jersey.

“I waited eight hours at the station to finally get 30 dollars of gas, which was the limit,” yellow cab driver Sherif Roby said in New York. “Many of my friends have been unable to work because they can’t find gas.”

Restoration of electricity continued apace, but that was little comfort to the remaining 1.4 million people who have already spent a week without light, and often heat, and still likely to face at least several days more.

The US Department of Energy said that 779,779 homes and businesses in New Jersey were in the dark, a fifth of all customers, while New York state had another 487,952 outages, six per cent of the total.

Another immediate challenge is today’s presidential election. In the worst-hit neighbourhoods 59 New York polling stations were listed as closed, and voters were instructed to go to alternative sites, while in New Jersey, authorities were allowing limited numbers to cast votes by email or fax.

The bigger problem looming for people left homeless, or with damaged homes, is the impending winter and, more immediately, a strong gale forecasted for tomorrow.

Nighttime temperatures were close to freezing this week and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg estimated that 30,000 to 40,000 homes in the city alone had been left unusable by the October 29 storm.

“It is starting to get cold, people are in homes that are uninhabitable,” New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo said.