A look back at Superstorm Sandy
Five years after Superstorm Sandy was supposed to have taught the country a lesson about the dangers of living on an undefended coast, there’s still no city in America that’s truly prepared for the challenges of climate change and the storms it will deliver.
The former hurricane merged with other systems to create a meteorological hybrid storm that hit the nation’s most populous metro area. It swamped coastline communities, knocked out power, flooded parts of New York City’s transit system, set neighborhoods ablaze and killed dozens of people.
Sandy became a tropical storm in the Caribbean Sea on Oct. 23 and struck Jamaica as a Category 1 storm a day later. It then rapidly intensified into a Category 3 before coming ashore as a Category 2 in Cuba. As it moved north in the Atlantic, the storm became an extratropical cyclone before hitting Brigantine, New Jersey, late on Oct. 29.
The storm is blamed for 182 deaths, including 48 in New York and 12 in New Jersey. More than 70 were killed in the Caribbean, including 54 in Haiti.
Here is a look back at photos from The Associated Press' coverage of Superstorm Sandy:
This aerial photo of Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012, shows the New York skyline and harbor. The vast destruction wreaked by the storm surge in New York could have been prevented with a sea barrier of the type that protects major cities in Europe, some scientists and engineers say. The multibillion-dollar price tag of such a project has been a hindrance, but may appear more palatable after the damage from Superstorm Sandy has been tallied. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Storm surge hits a small tree as winds from Hurricane Sandy reach Seaside Park in Bridgeport, Conn., Monday, Oct. 29, 2012. Water from Long Island Sound spilled into roadways and towns along the Connecticut shoreline Monday, the first signs of flooding from a storm that threatens to deliver a devastating surge of seawater. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Caleb Lavoie, 17, of Dayton, Maine, front, and Curtis Huard, 16, of Arundel, Maine, leap out of the way as a large wave crashes over a seawall on the Atlantic Ocean during the early stages of Hurricane Sandy, Monday, Oct. 29, 2012, in Kennebunk, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
FDNY firefighters glare up at a damaged crane as it hangs over 57th Street after being torn from it's base by high winds, Monday, Oct. 29, 2012, in New York. Hurricane Sandy continued on its path Monday, as the storm forced the shutdown of mass transit, schools and financial markets, sending coastal residents fleeing, and threatening a dangerous mix of high winds and soaking rain. AP Photo/ John Minchillo)
Sea water floods the Ground Zero construction site, Monday, Oct. 29, 2012, in New York. Sandy continued on its path Monday, as the storm forced the shutdown of mass transit, schools and financial markets, sending coastal residents fleeing, and threatening a dangerous mix of high winds and soaking rain. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
People wade and paddle down a flooded street as Hurricane Sandy approaches, Monday, Oct. 29, 2012, in Lindenhurst, N.Y. Gaining speed and power through the day, the storm knocked out electricity to more than 1 million people and figured to upend life for tens of millions more. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
Medical workers assist a patient into an ambulance during an evacuation of New York University's Tisch Hospital, Monday, Oct. 29, 2012, in New York. The New York City hospital is moving out more than 200 patients after its backup generator failed when the power was knocked out by a superstorm. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Brian Hajeski, 41, of Brick, N.J., reacts after looking at debris of a home that washed up on to the Mantoloking Bridge the morning after superstorm Sandy rolled through, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Mantoloking, N.J. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
This aerial photo shows burned-out homes in the Breezy Point section of the Queens borough New York after a fire on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. The tiny beachfront neighborhood told to evacuate before Sandy hit New York burned down as it was inundated by floodwaters, transforming a quaint corner of the Rockaways into a smoke-filled debris field. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)
Robert Connolly, left, embraces his wife Laura as they survey the remains of the home owned by her parents that burned to the ground in the Breezy Point section of New York, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. More than 50 homes were destroyed in the fire which swept through the oceanfront community during superstorm Sandy. At right is their son, Kyle. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Cars are submerged at the entrance to a parking garage in New York's Financial District in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. New York City awakened Tuesday to a flooded subway system, shuttered financial markets and hundreds of thousands of people without power a day after a wall of seawater and high winds slammed into the city, destroying buildings and flooding tunnels. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
A fallen tree rests beside a parked car on East Broadway in Manhattan's Lower East Side neighborhood, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in New York. New York City awakened Tuesday to a flooded subway system, shuttered financial markets and hundreds of thousands of people without power a day after a wall of seawater and high winds slammed into the city, destroying buildings and flooding tunnels. (AP Photo/ John Minchillo)
In this Oct. 30, 2012 photo, Crystal Medley, left, and her son Christian Jackson 11, play a video game at a shelter at Washington High School, in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in Princess Anne, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Joseph Leader, Metropolitan Tranportation Authority Vice President and Chief Maintenance Officer, shines a flashlight on standing water inside the South Ferry 1 train station in New York, N.Y., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012, in the wake of superstorm Sandy. The floodwaters that poured into New York's deepest subway tunnels may pose the biggest obstacle to the city's recovery from the worst natural disaster in the transit system's 108-year history. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
A parking lot full of yellow cabs is flooded as a result of superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 in Hoboken, NJ. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)
President Barack Obama is greeted by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie upon his arrival at Atlantic City International Airport, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012, in Atlantic City, NJ. Obama traveled to the region to take an aerial tour of the Atlantic Coast in New Jersey in areas damaged by superstorm Sandy, (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
A woman walks past a cabana complex on the beach pulled off its foundations by Superstorm Sandy in Sea Bright, N.J., Monday, Nov. 19, 2012. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
On a National Guard truck, Ali LaPointe, of Hoboken, N.J., hands her daughter Eliza Skye LaPointe, 18-months-old, to Hoboken firefighters, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012, in Hoboken, N.J., in the wake of superstorm Sandy. Some residents are being plucked from their homes by large trucks as parts of the city are still covered in standing water. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
In this Oct. 31, 2012 aerial photo, a New York Air National Guard helicopter with Gov. Andrew Cuomo aboard flies over the ocean side community of Breezy Point in the Queens borough of New York to survey the damage caused by Superstorm Sandy. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
A dog named Shaggy is handed from a National Guard truck to National Guard personnel after the dog and his owner left a flooded building in Hoboken, N.J., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012, in the wake of superstorm Sandy. Some residents and pets are being plucked from their homes by large trucks as parts of the city are still covered in standing water. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
Robert Bryce, right, walks with his wife, Marcia Bryce, as destruction from superstorm Sandy is seen on Route 35 in Seaside Heights, N.J., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
In a photo made through a chain-link fence, traffic is gridlocked on the Long Island Expressway into Manhattan near the turn off for the Queensboro Bridge, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012, in the Queens borough of New York. New York's subway system rumbled partially back to life Thursday, though the morning commute was plagued by long delays and massive gridlock on the main highways and bridges leading into the city. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
Commuters wait in a line to board buses into Manhattan in front of the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012. The line stretched twice around the arena and commuters reported wait times of one to three hours to get on a bus. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Commuters board a New York Waterway ferry bound for Midtown Manhattan at the 14th Street pier Thursday Nov. 1, 2012 in Hoboken, N.J. New York City moved closer to resuming its frenetic pace by getting back its vital subways Thursday, three days after a superstorm, but neighboring New Jersey was stunned by coastal devastation and the news of thousands of people in one city still stranded by increasingly fetid floodwaters. (AP Photo/Joe Epstein)
A woman with her groceries passes a group of National Guardsmen as they march up 1st Avenue towards the 69th Regiment Armory, Saturday, Nov. 3, 2012, in New York. National Guardsmen remain in Manhattan as the city begins to move towards normalcy following Superstorm Sandy earlier in the week. (AP Photo/ John Minchillo)
Vitaliy Isakov, manager of Coney Island's Washington Baza supermarket, bags up food items before putting them outside in the garbage, Sunday, Nov. 4, 2012 in New York. Washington Baza supermarket, a Russian-American business, was totally flooded by Superstorm Sandy and all the store's inventory has to b discarded. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Ariel Nadelberg of the Brooklyn borough of New York pours hot soup in a cup at a parking lot that has become make shift place where those in need can get food and clothing in a Rockaway neighborhood of the borough of Queens, New York, Monday, Nov. 5, 2012, as efforts to bring goods and services to people goes on in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. Many volunteers have shown up on their own to try to lend a hand any way they can. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
United States flags are displayed on flood-damaged homes in the Breezy Point section of Queens, N.Y., Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
The sun rises in Seaside Heights, N.J., Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, behind the Jet Star Roller Coaster which has been sitting in the ocean after part of the Funtown Pier was destroyed during Superstorm Sandy. The private owners of the amusement pier that collapsed in Seaside Heightsare working with insurers to devise a plan to dismantle the ride and get it out of the ocean. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)