Separately, the U.S. Department of Transportation said Wednesday it was releasing $10 million in emergency funds to New York state and $3 million to Rhode Island to help pay for restoring storm-damaged roads.

President Obama — who toured heavily damaged areas along the New Jersey shore Wednesday with Gov. Chris Christie — directed DOT to “restore vital transportation infrastructure,” the department said on its website.

The FMCSA order, which took effect Tuesday, “applies only to those [trucking] operations providing direct assistance to the emergency relief effort,” FMCSA said.

The ruling also exempts utility vehicles from HOS requirements, with many utilities bringing in linemen from other areas to help restore power. News reports said more than 8 million customers lost power following the huge storm.

Affected states include Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia.

Kentucky, New Hampshire and North Carolina also issued state emergency declarations related to Sandy, which dumped more than a foot of snow in parts of West Virginia, disrupted highway traffic in many states and brought gale-force winds as far west as Lake Michigan.

This story appears in the Sept. 21 print edition of Transport Topics. Americans thanked truck drivers in ways big and small as part of National Truck Driver Appreciation Week. Company executives, highway enforcement personnel and industry groups offered a range of gestures, from simple handshakes and free coffee and doughnuts to a steak and lobster dinner and increases in pay. American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves paid tribute to the 3.4 million professional truck drivers in a video message distributed to media outlets. “We know what a challenging job driving a truck can be, but we also know that trucks move America forward, and without each of you, we just simply couldn’t get that job done,” Graves said in a statement. ATA launched National Truck Driver Appreciation Week in 1988 to honor drivers and influence public opinion. “I call on every American to join me — and the ATA — in honoring our drivers,” said ATA Chairman Duane Long, who is also chairman of Raleigh, North Carolina-based Longistics Inc. “America’s truck drivers perform an important duty in helping us maintain our economy and our quality of life, and too often, we take them for granted.” Around the country, appreciation events included picnics, free meals at truck stops and weigh stations and an outpouring of praise in newspapers as well as posts on social media. Trucking Moves America Forward, the image campaign funded by the trucking industry, placed ads in newspapers in an effort to show truck drivers as friends, family and neighbors. “There’s a story to tell about how integral the trucking industry is to America’s economy, and without our drivers, Americans simply would not move forward,” said Kevin Burch, president of Jet Express, based in Dayton, Ohio, and co-chairman of the TMAF campaign. Read more at: http://www.ttnews.com/articles/petemplate.aspx?storyid=39475 © Transport Topics, American Trucking Associations Inc. Reproduction, redistribution, display or rebroadcast by any means without written permission is prohibited.