NEW YORK – A nor’easter brought gusting winds, rain, snow and the threat of flooding to the U.S. Northeast, menacing travellers with icy roads and snarling a rail line while knocking out power to people who had only recently gotten it back after Superstorm Sandy.

Forecasters said the latest storm was weaker than first thought, but it still caused further damage to an already weakened infrastructure of the country’s most densely populated region. Rain and wet snow continued to fall in New York City early Thursday after beginning about midday the day before.

Exactly as authorities feared, the nor’easter brought down tree limbs and electrical wires. More than half-a-million homes and businesses remained without power as temperatures hit freezing at night, and finding tens of thousands of people emergency housing — in some cases, for the long term — was the greatest challenge.

Power utilities in New York and New Jersey reported that nearly 60,000 customers who lost power because of Sandy lost it all over again as a result of the nor’easter.

Mark L. Fendrick, of Staten Island, tweeted: “My son had just got his power back 2 days ago now along comes this nor’easter and it’s out again.”

“A lot of folks who just got their power back, and I mean thousands are now without power again because of this nor’easter,” ABC News’ Ginger Zee said.

“I am waiting for the locusts and pestilence next,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said. Public works crews with heavy machinery worked to build up dunes to protect the battered shoreline.

The utility Con Ed, which serves New York City, said that by early evening, the nor’easter knocked out power to at least 11,000 customers, some of whom had just gotten it back. Tens of thousands more were expected to lose power overnight.

The Long Island Power Authority said by evening that the number of customers in the dark had risen from 150,000 to more than 198,000.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered police to use loudspeakers to warn vulnerable residents, many of them in low-income public housing, about evacuating.

“Even though it’s not anywhere near as strong as Sandy — nor strong enough, in normal times, for us to evacuate anybody — out of precaution and because of the changing physical circumstances, we are going to go to some small areas and ask those people to go to higher ground,” Bloomberg said Tuesday.

But many were deciding to stay, worried about their empty homes being looted. Others decided the situation couldn’t get much worse.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency put a number to the storm’s homeless in New York and New Jersey, saying 95,000 people were eligible for emergency housing assistance. Just under a million people were still without power in the region.

Storm surges along the coasts of New Jersey and New York were expected to reach perhaps 0.9 metres, only half to a third of what the hurricane-driven Sandy caused last week. But Sandy destroyed some protective dunes, especially in New Jersey, making even a weaker surge dangerous.

High winds, which could reach 104 kilometres an hour, could stall power restoration efforts or cause further outages.

More than 1,500 flights have been cancelled in the U.S. Northeast area. Last week, Sandy led to more than 20,000 flight cancellations.

In Toronto, there are dozens of flight cancellations at Pearson International Airport, and Porter Airlines has issued weather advisories for Boston and Newark.

New York City was closing all parks, playgrounds and beaches and ordering all construction sites to be secured. Tuesday evening, Bloomberg ordered three nursing homes and an adult care facility evacuated from Queens’ vulnerable Rockaway Peninsula.

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said it wasn’t wise to stay put. “I think your life is more important than property,” he said.