Battered East Coast takes first steps back to normal routine

The battered US East Coast took the first steps back towards daily routine today, even as rescuers combed areas strewn with debris and scarred by floods and fire.

But while New York buses returned to darkened streets oddly free of traffic and the Stock Exchange was set to reopen, it became clear that restoring the region to its normal pace could take days – and that rebuilding the hardest-hit communities and the transport networks that link them would take much longer.