mmg.com.au

There was a small cheer from Steve Huntley and his fellow plane passengers when their flight touched down at Tullamarine on Sunday night.

The flight had come from New York, with its passengers finally able to escape the aftermath of superstorm Sandy.

Mr Huntley, an Echuca resident, was in Manhattan when the storm — which had been downgraded from a hurricane — hit early last week.

He was only too pleased to be able to get a flight home after 19,600 flights from New York’s four main airports were cancelled during, and in the immediate aftermath, of the storm.

‘‘We were fortunate we got a flight out,’’ he said.

‘‘Thousands were still stuck.’’

Mr Huntley said there were a lot of flights leaving New York when his did on Friday night, American time (Saturday morning, Australian time).

‘‘It was chaos in the airport,’’ he said.

Mr Huntley said he and two friends he was travelling with had a chance to look around the streets of New York after the storm.

Among what he saw was the National Armed Guard moving into Manhattan’s lower east side on Thursday — about two blocks from his hotel — to help get infrastructure such as electricity and the sewerage system working again.

Traffic in the city was also starting to get back to normal after days of it being like a ghost town, he said.

When he spoke to the Riverine Herald for an article in Friday’s paper, Mr Huntley said he had been worried about being able to get transportation to the airport.

However, he managed to find a shuttle bus from Grand Central Station that took him right there for only $15.

While taxis were running again, Mr Huntley said they were charging huge prices to get to the airport.

Relaxing at home in Echuca on Monday, Mr Huntley said he was ‘‘glad to be back’’.