NEW YORK (AP) -- Millions of families tried to adjust to life without modern conveniences Wednesday, two full days after Hurricane Sandy ripped through the Northeast and blacked out some of the nation's most densely populated cities and suburbs.
Homes grew chilly without heat. Food spoiled in refrigerators. Televisions remained silent. And people everywhere scurried for a spot to charge their cell phones.
By and large, Americans tried to make the best of a situation that was beyond their control. Some homeowners were beginning to lose patience as utilities struggled to restore power - a massive job they warned could last well into next week.
Sandy's footprint was enormous, knocking down wires and rendering other critical equipment useless across a huge span of the country, from Virginia to Massachusetts and as far west as the Great Lakes.
"It's unprecedented: fallen trees, debris, the roads, water, snow. It's a little bit of everything," said Brian Wolff, senior vice president of the Edison Electric Institute, a lobbying group for utilities.
For power companies, the scale of the destruction was unmatched. The damage is more widespread than any blizzard or ice storm. And it's worse than the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
About 60 million people were initially without power in 8.2 million homes and businesses. By Wednesday night, that number had fallen to roughly 44 million people in 6 million households and businesses.
Even as power slowly returned to some pockets, a new headache emerged: Backup batteries and generators running cell phone towers were running out of juice. One out of every five towers was down, according to the Federal Communications Commission. That - plus more people relying on their cell phones to stay connected - overwhelmed the system in some areas, leaving many struggling to place a call.
With many businesses and schools closed, people looked for ways to keep themselves entertained.
John Mazzeo, of Monroe, Conn., has a small generator that doesn't really provide him much power. But it was enough to keep his 7-year-old daughter occupied with a Christmas movie. Meals consisted of McDonald's and cereal from the cupboard.
Vildia Samaniego, of New York traveled four miles uptown to a bar, The Blarney Stone, to watch the Boston Celtics play the Miami Heat.
"I really needed to watch the basketball game," she laughed. "The place was packed. It's amazing how much you miss television."
Peter Nikac, a teacher who lives in Fairfield, Conn., took a more old-fashioned route: His family spent their time playing board games and sorting through family photos.
"You get back to when we were young with no electronics," he said. "You realize you don't need a lot of that material. You get back to just doing simple things which is somewhat pleasing."
For others, the outage had more grave consequences.
"I have several hundred dollars' worth of insulin in the refrigerator," said Joan Moore of Staten Island, who is diabetic. She was reluctant to leave her home but needs to keep the medicine cold.
In Bellington, W. Va., Stephanie Hinkle and her 10- and 12-year-old kids waited out the aftermath of the storm with about a dozen other evacuees at a Red Cross shelter.
"No heat, no way to cook, no way to keep two small children warm. You have to do what you have to do to keep them safe," she said. Hinkle, who is unemployed, relies on government help to feed her kids, so she didn't have stockpiled food, water and supplies.
For New Yorkers living in the vertical city, a loss of power means much more than spoiled cold cuts and frozen dinners. Electricity is needed to pump water to upper floors. Many New Yorkers prepared for the storm by stocking up on bottled water. But without power, there's no way to flush the toilet.
There were encouraging acts of kindness, gestures made by the lucky ones with electricity.
"I have power and hot water. If anyone needs a shower or to charge some gadgets or just wants to bask in the beauty of artificial light, hit me up," Rob Hart, who lives on New York City's Staten Island, wrote on Facebook.
Not everybody was so neighborly.
Jake Tschudy was busy selling generators out of a truck parked on the side of a Rhode Island highway. He bought 70 of the Hyundai generators prior to the storm and was now asking $699 or $1,399 each, depending on the size. Tschudy wouldn't say how much he marked up the price.
"I do OK," he said. "It's not gouging."
Many suburban and rural neighborhoods lack power because Sandy's winds, which reached up to 90 mph, knocked trees and branches into overhead wires.
Sandy massive storm surge - 14 feet of water that broke a record set in 1821 - also frustrated efforts to quickly restore power. In New York City and along the New Jersey and Connecticut coasts, flooding knocked out substations and switching yards, the vertebrae of the electric distribution system.
Far from the coasts, utilities dealt with a different problem: Snow piled onto trees that still had leaves, knocking
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