Residents of the seaside town of Point Pleasant, New Jersey, have surveyed the damage caused to their community by superstorm Sandy

Storm surge had visibly left much of the town's boardwalk in ruins, with large planks of wood cracked and jutting out in every direction.

Around 6 million homes and businesses in 15 different states remain without power as utilities scrambled to restore service disrupted by Sandy.

Sandy crashed ashore with 80 mile-per-hour (130-kph) winds on Monday as a rare hybrid super storm after merging with another system.

It was the largest storm by area to hit the United States in generations and is likely to rank as one of the costliest storms in U.S. history.

One disaster-modeling firm said Sandy may have caused up to $15 billion in insured losses.