Associated Press - November 18, 2009 3:25 AM ET

OCEAN CITY, N.J. (AP) - Amid the roar of bulldozers pushing tons of sand around, officials along the East Coast are totaling up tens of millions of dollars in damages from last week's powerful nor'easter.

Ocean City used a bulldozer to try to tame the angry ocean - and lost when waves demolished a beach and the 10-foot dunes that once stood there.

In Maryland, the storm unleashed nearly 2,000 tires that had been dropped on the ocean floor as part of a man-made reef. They battered the coast of Assateague Island, where a colony of 150 wild ponies survived the storm by moving to higher ground.

A quarter-mile of a main highway in North Carolina was washed out, and even Louisiana suffered beach and dune damage.

Beach towns hope President Obama will declare them disaster areas.

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