NEW YORK – President Barack Obama got his first look Thursday at the devastation that Superstorm Sandy waged on New York City, with a helicopter tour above flood-ravaged and burned-out sections of Queens and Staten Island.

Two and a half weeks after the massive East Coast storm displaced New Yorkers, thousands of whom remain without power, Obama took an aerial tour that included Breezy Point, a waterfront community in Queens where roughly 100 homes were burned in a massive fire. Below Marine One, blue tarps covered some homes instead of roofs and debris was scattered across neighborhoods still drying out after the storm.

"The storm passes and sometimes attention turns elsewhere," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters traveling with the president aboard Air Force One. "But the fact is there's a lot of work that still needs to be done."