NEW YORK -- A new gasoline rationing plan that lets motorists fill up every other day is going into effect in New York.

Police will be at gas stations this morning to enforce the new system in New York City and on Long Island.

Officials say it was imposed because something had to be done to ease the long waits for fuel, which they say has caused panic-buying and hoarding.

A nor'easter that knocked out power to hundreds of thousands also has erased some of the progress made by utility crews after superstorm Sandy.

Some people, including Governor Andrew Cuomo, have lost patience and are demanding investigations of utilities they say aren't working fast enough.

The utilities say they are dealing with damage unprecedented in its scope and are doing the best they can.

And there is no denying the magnitude of what they have done: At the peak, more than 8.5 million homes and businesses across 21 states lost power during Sandy.

Early today, there were more than 288-thousand outages in New York and about 273,000 in New Jersey.