Superstorm claims 43rd life in NYC
NEW YORK – The grim toll from Superstorm Sandy has risen yet again in New York City with the death of a 77-year-old man who was found at the bottom of the stairs inside his dark, beachfront apartment building on Halloween.
Police said Sunday that Albert McSwain was the 43rd confirmed storm-related death in the city. His apartment building, on a beachfront boulevard in the Rockaways section of Queens, lost power as the storm made landfall on Oct. 29.
McSwain was found with head and body trauma, paralyzed from the neck down, on Oct. 31. He died of his injuries Saturday at a Queens hospital, officials said.
Much of the Rockaways, a narrow peninsula surrounded by Jamaica Bay on one side and the ocean on the other, has been without electricity since the storm hit. More than 166,000 people in New York, New Jersey and West Virginia remain without power, with New York suffering the most extensive outages.
