Anger grows over fuel shortage in storm-hit Northeast

By Edith Honan and Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Frustration grew on Friday for residents of Northeast states hit by superstorm Sandy as the death toll reached 102, millions were still without power and tempers frayed at a lack of fuel and guidance on when life might return to normal.

New York City canceled its annual marathon in the face of rising criticism of a previous decision to go ahead with the race on Sunday as the search for bodies continued in devastated communities from New York's Staten Island to New Jersey seaside towns.

Sandy, which brought a record storm surge to coastal areas, slammed into the U.S. Northeast on Monday. Forty-one died in New York City, about half of them in Staten Island, which was overrun by a wall of water.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he had spoken to the father of two boys, aged 2 and 4, who were swept from their mother's arms as she tried to escape rising waters on Staten Island. Their father is a sanitation worker and was helping the city respond to the storm when it happened, Bloomberg said.

"It just breaks your heart to even think about it," Bloomberg said on Friday. "While life in much of our city is getting back to normal, for New Yorkers that have lost loved ones, the storm left a wound that I think will never heal."

Sandy started as a late-season hurricane in the Caribbean, where it killed 69 people before smashing ashore in the United States with 80-mile-per-hour (130-kph) winds. It stretched from the Carolinas to Connecticut and was the largest storm by area to hit the United States in decades.

In Brooklyn's Coney Island, home to a large Russian immigrant community, Anna Ladd's basement still held sea water and she was without power and gas. Ladd, 62, has applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for help but was wary of what aid, if any, she would receive.

"We have a saying in Russia - when someone promises something, you have to wait three more years until they deliver," she said.