Hurricane Sandy Alters Mayoral Campaigns in N.Y.C. This is when the New York City mayor's race goes off script. After months spent preparing for a race about teacher evaluations, police tactics and other municipal mainstays, City Hall hopefuls are confronting a 2013 contest that has been rewritten, perhaps permanently, by the wrath of Hurricane Sandy. Candidates are facing questions on sea gates and tidal marshes, exotic topics that were never in their briefing books. The minutiae of federal disaster relief is suddenly in the headlines. And the lopsided impact of the storm has opened up a fresh set of class and interborough tensions to navigate and, in some cases, exploit. Aware that crises can be proving grounds for leaders, the candidates are brushing up, meeting with environmental consultants and financial experts. White papers are in the works on recovery and rebuilding efforts along the city's wounded coastline. In interviews over the past week, the four leading Democratic candidates recalled harrowing tours of the city's damaged neighborhoods, and emotional encounters with the newly homeless. But even as they comfort storm victims and pitch in with relief efforts, they are mindful that disasters offer potent political moments, chances to telegraph their values ahead of what could be a grueling campaign. Take Bill de Blasio, the city's public advocate, who is running for mayor with a message of change, arguing that the advances of the Bloomberg years failed to extend to all corners of the city. "Right now, there's a "Tale of Two Cities" dynamic," he said. In the days after Hurricane Sandy hit, Mr. de Blasio, from Park Slope, Brooklyn, took light towers into powerless parts of the Rockaways, where, he said, "people felt so profoundly insecure." "People were literally grabbing me by the arm and saying, "Get help to us, no one's paying attention," " he recalled. Since the storm made landfall, he has repeatedly complained of inequity in the city's response and suggested that any plans should include as many moral questions as practical ones. "You can look at this as "We need sea walls," or you can look at this as "We need to retool our approach for human security, economic security, for economic equity," " Mr. de Blasio said. It's another version of the larger contrast running through this city in general, where you've had, especially in recent years, some neighborhoods struggling and others doing very well. Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, whose Chelsea apartment lost power for four days, has focused more on the practical challenges left by the storm. She was the first candidate to deliver a major speech on Hurricane Sandy; in it, she encouraged the use of cutting-edge technology to limit damage from future storms. In scope and details, it evoked the approach of her political ally, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, with whom she has worked to identify herself early in the campaign. "It's the most important infrastructure project of our time," Ms. Quinn said. The city, she added, needed leaders who could handle the details: "elected officials who can respond and react quickly when things happen on a scale beyond what they had anticipated." Ms. Quinn was the only major Democratic contender who lost power in the storm, but she, like all the candidates, said her concerns were minor compared with those of people who live in low-lying areas. She noted that her Labrador-hound, Justin, enjoyed living in a darkened neighborhood for a few days, even if his owners did not. "I was like, "Justin, come on: focus, pee and get back in the house,"" she said, laughing. As it often does with Ms. Quinn, the personal overlaps with the political. She and her wife share a beach house in Bradley Beach, N.J., which escaped serious damage thanks to view-obstructing dunes the town built after a damaging hurricane in 1992 - a useful case study as New York prepares its own preventive measures. "People used to bust a little bit on Bradley because you couldn't see the water from the Boardwalk," Ms. Quinn said. But the dunes did their job. They ended up on the Boardwalk, but they held the water back. William C. Thompson Jr., a former city comptroller, used Mr. Bloomberg's early response to the storm to underscore his criticism of a leader he says can be distant and Manhattan-centric. Mr. Thompson attacked Mr. Bloomberg's initial decision to allow the New York City Marathon to go on just days after the storm - a decision the mayor reversed. Mr. Thompson also said people in damaged areas complained of neglect. "It was heartbreaking, where there were people who days and days later felt the city had abandoned them, and really felt that people weren't listening," he said, recalling trips to Staten Island and southern Brooklyn. Voters and storm victims alike, Mr. Thompson said, are looking for a mayor "who can represent the entire city." Mr. Thompson plans to emphasize his background in municipal finance as a critical skill in working out how to pay for the city's recovery costs. His campaign is preparing papers on the topic, and he said he planned to consult with Richard Ravitch, a former lieutenant governor who once helped stabilize the finances of the city's transit system. The only Democratic candidate who is not now an elected official, Mr. Thompson used his own car to get around the city immediately after the storm. At one point, he said, running low on gas, he waited two hours at a station in Harlem, near his home. The current comptroller, John C. Liu, is also planning a populist campaign for mayor, but, in an interview, he emphasized the good deeds he saw in the days after Hurricane Sandy, "the best of the human spirit shining through," as he put it. He said he wished there had been more attention paid to the efforts of charities, like the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, which distributed prepaid debit cards to storm victims. "I was at many of the distribution efforts - people were in tears, tears of joy," he said. They didn't believe that someone would give them assistance with no hassles. Mr. Liu suggested that volunteers had had to make up for an inadequate response from the city. But he generally demurred on speaking about the storm in a political light. "Honestly, I have not thought of it in the prism of the campaign," Mr. Liu said. We'll wait until the actual election year before we get started on that.