The hurricane-hit areas of Rockaway and Breezy Point, in Queens, New York, braced themselves for further damage as a new storm rolled into the U.S. east coast on Wednesday (November 7).

Streets had already started to flood again in the morning, and sandbags were seen being delivered to the coastal areas.

After Hurricane Sandy killed 40 people in New York City when it hit on October 29, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered evacuations of low-lying, hard-hit areas such as the Rockaways and the south shore of Staten Island as the so-called Nor'easter storm approached from the Atlantic Ocean.

Parks and beaches were closed ahead of the storm, which was pelting the Washington area with ice pellets on Wednesday and whipping up seas as high as 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) about 20 miles (30 km) off New York's JFK airport, AccuWeather reported

Authorities hurried to clear tens of thousands of tons of debris from Sandy amid fears it could produce deadly projectiles.

The Nor'easter threatened inland areas with powerful winds that could blow down trees and limbs weakened from Sandy, the National Weather Service said while forecasting a wintry mix of rain and snow from northern Maryland to central New England.

Airlines cancelled 770 flights into and out of the New York area, FlightAware.com said.

Thousands of people in the U.S. Northeast lost their homes and more than 621,000 homes and businesses remained without power due to Sandy, testing nerves ahead of the Nor'easter.