The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy has created chaos and long lines at voting stations in the U.S. Northeast on Tuesday which also braced for a new storm expected on Wednesday.

Hurricane Sandy, which struck New York and New Jersey eight days ago, continued to create misery for the thousands who lost their homes and 900 000 households and businesses that remained without power, international media report.

Voters casting ballots for the US President endured confusion at makeshift polling stations. In New York City's Rockaways, a badly damaged barrier island community facing the Atlantic, people whose homes were damaged or destroyed or lacked power went to vote in a tent.

In Brooklyn's Coney Island neighborhood, still far from recovered from Sandy's onslaught, voting had to be relocated from one school to another that lacked handicap access.

Still crawling out the devastation of Sandy, the region braced for a smaller but powerful storm, a nor'easter due to bring 95 km/h winds and a mix of rain and snow on Wednesday and Thursday. Temperatures could dip toward freezing or below.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered all city parks and beaches closed at noon on Wednesday for at least 24 hours.

"We just don't need to send our first responders into the ocean to save someone who is being foolish," Bloomberg said.

Sandy killed 69 people in the Caribbean before it moved north, combined with a strong North Atlantic system, and roared ashore on the New Jersey coast on October 29 as a rare hybrid superstorm.

It killed at least 114 in the United States and Canada and knocked out power to millions of people while swamping seaside towns and inundating New York City's streets and subway tunnels.