Some areas hit by Sandy are ever so slowly inching back to normal life. Inching, that is, like the cars heading into Manhattan from Brooklyn that this OnEarth correspondent has been hearing honk (every inch of the way) for the last 24 hours. For other locales, normal will be a much longer time coming. While some New York City subway lines are running again, millions of people who lost power in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, West Virginia, and other states don't know when they'll be able to turn on the lights again. Commuters who can are working from home. Despite everything, Halloween came to some New York neighborhoods last night, with kids and parents making it out in full spooky regalia. New Jersey kids, however, will have to be a little more patient: Halloween's happening on Monday.

• Across the region, rescue workers are starting to find the bodies of people swept away in the floodwaters or trapped in homes and cars. The storm's death toll is now 74.
• New Jersey is looking a bit apocalyptic, according to the Newark Star-Ledger. Mantoloking is described as "a war zone," the National Guard has headed into Hoboken to deliver relief, and Cape May "looked like a nuclear bomb had hit." The death toll in the Garden State is up to 12.
• This how you know the end is nigh: The media and some politicians are actually talking about climate change! They're even getting it pretty much right.
• If yesterday was any indication, it's going to take a looooong time to get anywhere in New York City today. Subways opened at 6 a.m. but lines started to form at least an hour earlier, the New York Daily News reports. At least the ride is free?
• Another good (and free) option? Bike commuting. Blogger Dani Simons offers tips for newbies.
• Feeling lucky? Atlantic City casinos are ready to open and start making money again: the coastal city took a blow but didn't get hit quite as hard as the rest of the Jersey Shore, says The Wall Street Journal.
• One thin, silver lining to the storm is new construction jobs.
• The animal residents of the New York Aquarium in Coney Island made it through the storm safely, but the building didn't fare so well. The aquarium will be closed for who knows how long, and the marine species living there may have to move elsewhere for the time being.
• Upper Manhattan, "the City of Light," is living a normal enough life that it won't let Lower Manhattan in to charge its cell phones, The New York Times found.
• Meanwhile, cell phone companies are scrambling to get their communications back in decent shape. AT&T and T-Mobile are hosting each others' customers, the WSJ reports, and Verizon, which has its headquarters in downtown Manhattan, is cleaning water and mud out of its basement cable vault.
• The Washington Post found a bodega in the East Village that stayed open, did not price-gouge, and managed to sell cold beer.
• Slate doubles down on its argument that food drives don't make any sense during disasters.
• Resilience -- bouncing back from disasters with little damage -- and sustainability aren't necessarily the same, Scientific American explains. Especially if resilience involves dumping tons of sewage in New York City's Gowanus Canal or keeping the lights on with diesel generations.

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Image: Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Patrick Cashin