This story and the 40 profiles that accompany it were reported by Seth Augenstein, Bob Braun, Jessica Calefati and Victoria St. Martin. The story was written by Bob Braun.

These are Sandy’s victims, the dead from the storm and the cold and darkness it left behind. So far, a month later, they number 40.

They were white, black, Hispanic and Asian. They were rich and poor. They were immigrants and native-born. They had graduate degrees and did not finish high school. They owned companies and were unemployed.

They were active in their communities, some holding public office, and they were reclusive or happy simply to lead private lives. They were married and had children and they were divorced and widowed and they lived their lives as single men and women.

They were frail and sick, suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease or asthma or heart conditions or kidney failure, and they were strong, running or swimming or biking every day.

They loved opera and jazz and the blues and Gospel and singing barbershop quartet. They tinkered with cars, covered the walls of their homes with their own paintings and sculpted and grew roses and azaleas and restored old farmhouses. They were known for their pancakes and their macaroni and cheese and their coffee.

Read individual profiles of all 40 New Jersey residents killed by Sandy

They lived in 13 of New Jersey’s 21 counties. Middlesex County had the largest number of victims — seven. Newark had the largest number of victims for one town — four. The Shore counties where the physical destruction was the worst — Atlantic, Ocean, Monmouth and Cape May — accounted for 10 of the 40 fatalities.

They lived in cities like Newark and Jersey City and Trenton and Atlantic City and they lived in suburbs like Summit and Randolph and they lived in rural hamlets like Pattenburg. They lived in mansions and row houses and public housing projects.

ELDERLY HIT HARDEST

Mostly, they were old.

More than half who died were 61 or older, the average age was 63. Three were in their 90s, three in their 80s, nine in their 70s, 12 in their 60s.

The oldest was 94, Celestine Kreitzer of Forked River, who wouldn’t leave her home and died there of hypothermia. Ninety years separated her from the youngest victim, Dhyanesh Balaji, a little boy killed when he was struck by a car on an unlit street of Jersey City as he held his mother’s hand.

Two were 93: Walter Schoepfer of Ventnor fell and struck his head trying to move his car away from his flooded home. Joseph Puglisi fell down the stairs of his lightless Summit home while his wife listened in horror and in the dark to the thump of his fall.

Where the lives were lost

Two victims were teenagers — but there were none in their 20s or 30s.

This was death in the dark and death in the cold. Death caused not so much by the direct, instant impact of violent winds and heavy rains, but by the absence of electricity. Of the 40 deaths, 12 were attributable to the causes of drowning and falling trees or branches.

But 26 died of falls in the dark, of hypothermia in unheated homes, of asphyxiation from ill-used generators, of interruptions in electric-powered medical appliances, of illnesses exacerbated by the stress of the storm, of accidents on unlit streets, and of fires in homes where candles were lit to ward off the unrelieved night.

This was death in the aftermath. Although the exact time of death cannot be known for all victims, only 12 of the 40 deaths occurred Oct. 29 and 30, days when wind howled and rain fell. The rest came later — the last on Nov. 24, when Bernice Pasquarello, 69, of Medford, checking on her summer home in Sea Isle City, was struck by a town truck used to clear debris.

Like that of Dhyanesh Balaji, the little boy killed while he walked with his mother and grandmother, some deaths were witnessed. Richard and Elizabeth Everett of Randolph were driving home in their truck when a tree fell on the vehicle and killed them; their two sons in the backseat survived.

Amadeo Gutierrez, 41, of North Brunswick, hoisted himself up on a large tree and was trying to cut down a limb while his crew watched from the ground; the branch swung wildly and struck and killed him.

William Hardenburg, 67, of Bethlehem Township, died after he was struck by a pickup truck while helping to clear debris from a roadway.

DYING ALONE

Still, like Kreitzer, most died alone — most often in the chill and gloom of homes without power.

Alice Redzilow, 86, of Bayonne, hit her head on a bathroom fixture and bled to death.

Erwin Bockhorn, 72, of Little Egg Harbor, drowned when water crashed into his house and tossed around his furniture in a crazy and lethal swirl.

Robert Patterson, 79, insisted on staying in his darkened home in Lambertville; his wife, Karyl, found him when she came home to bring him to the polls on Election Day — he was the victim of a fall.

They died alone, but not necessarily isolated, not cut off from distant family.

Gracie Dunston, 59, was in a Trenton row house with seven others but died alone in her bedroom of asphyxiation, apparently caused by a generator.

Mary Lou Viswat, 85, a former Middlesex Borough councilwoman, lived next door to her son Henry. The night the storm struck, they were together. He left her house with the suggestion she go to sleep. She didn’t; sometime during the night, Viswat died falling down her cellar steps.

Eva-Maria Wilson, 79, a survivor of the Allied firebombing of Dresden as a child, lived in darkness for 12 days in her Summit home and then fell down her stairs and died. She was visited or called every day by relatives who urged her to leave her lightless home. Wilson, active and engaged — she even served as a volunteer to help others affected by Sandy — refused to be a burden on anyone else.

TOGETHER AT THE END

Two married couples died together. The Everetts in their truck and Edwin, 74, and Charlene, 70, Jordan in a house fire in Willingboro — Charlene was disabled and they thought it best to stay in their dark home.

Not far from where the Viswats lived in Middlesex, Margaret Priddy, 78, and her son Lawrence, 57, were killed in a house fire apparently started by candles they used to bring light to their home.

In past storms — like Tropical Storm Irene, which killed 12 people last year — victims were trapped by floodwaters outside their homes.

That happened with Sandy, too, but only four drowned in this storm and only two were outside their homes.

Bobby McDuffie, 47, of Newark, was found inside his car near the food warehouse where he worked; he had volunteered to work an extra shift Oct. 29, then left the Ironbound food center to move his car away from the surging waters of the Passaic River.

Joseph Godleski, 69, of South Hackensack, drowned Oct. 30 when he was caught in a flood from the Hackensack River — he was following a daily routine of buying coffee at a local doughnut shop.

Two drowned inside flooded homes: Bockhorn and George Tatay, 61, of Brick, a refugee from the 1956 Hungarian revolution who, as a child, feared the rising waters of the Danube but, to the surprise of his family, bought a home at the Shore.

A falling tree also killed Princeton financier William Sword, 61, who had survived a knife attack at his home by a deranged man nine years ago. Fletcher Fish, 77, of Hawthorne, was in his second-floor bedroom, steps away from his wife, Mae, when two trees crashed through the roof and killed him but spared her.

Bruce Latteri, 51, of Jefferson, barely missed being hit by a tree that fell on a friend’s house; he went to his home on the same block and was killed hours later when a tree crashed into this kitchen.

Thomas Frey, 44, of Pattenburg in Hunterdon County, was killed by a falling tree limb Oct. 31 while he tried to clear debris.

On the morning of Thanksgiving Day, Vernon Hankins, 61, of Brick, was crushed under the weight of a fallen tree trunk he was trying to remove from his property; days earlier, the veteran teacher had told his principal how grateful he was the tree had fallen away from his house, not hurting anyone.

Of the 40 victims, 29 died in or near their homes.

FATAL FALLS

Almost as many — seven — died from falls as the eight killed by trees. One victim, Bill Pryor, 58, of Monroe, was buffeted by the winds and fell Oct. 29 in the parking lot of Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in Hamilton, where he worked as a pharmacist; he died 12 days later.

Five, like Dunston, died from carbon monoxide poisoning related to generators. New Brunswick restaurateur Rafael Reyes, 55, assured relatives he would not put the generator on the first floor of his shop; he didn’t, but he died anyway.

Retired Edison firefighter Robert Walsh, 65, told a friend who called he felt drowsy and would probably go to sleep on his couch — while a generator ran in the garage; he was found dead 36 hours later.

Two young women, cousins and best friends, died in the same Newark apartment, apparently from the fumes of a generator placed outside but too close to an open window; Kenya Barber, 19, pregnant with her first child, and Mudiwa Benson, 19, the mother of an 8-month-old baby, wanted to be together to comfort each other during the storm.

LOST TO THE COLD

Hypothermia, a condition that preys on the elderly, killed Kreitzer, Sandy’s oldest victim, and three others.

Lester Kaplan, 73, a retired lawyer who lived in Brigantine, insisted on staying with the house as other family members left. He apparently became disoriented, took off his clothes, and died of a condition that lowers heart rates and blood pressure to fatal levels.

Leonard Thompson, 71, of Stafford, also insisted on staying in his home while neighbors evacuated.

Robert Mayberry, 61, an active fisherman, cyclist and surfer from Long Branch, was found dead, wrapped in blankets in his cold apartment after he failed to show up for a fishing trip with friends.

Three died of conditions exacerbated by the storm. Bernice Sapp, 65, of Atlantic City, is considered the disaster’s first victim. She died of a heart attack while being evacuated from her apartment before Sandy’s arrival.

Benjamin Harris, 83, a jazz singer and retired teacher, was found dead in a stairwell of his Hawthorne garden apartment complex. His death was attributed to heart disease.

Ernest Williams, 65, died of an apparent asthma attack in his cold and dark Newark apartment; he was found with an inhaler in his hand.

The lack of power was considered a factor in the deaths of two people who relied on electricity to maintain oxygen from tanks.

Maureen Caporino, 65, of Jersey City, a longtime city employee, was found dead by a caregiver in her home. She suffered from lung disease and the oxygen tanks she needed to breathe could not operate.

Vernie Mathison, 61, of West Orange was a victim of Lou Gehrig’s disease and died after his oxygen was briefly interrupted Oct. 29; he died Nov. 7 of respiratory failure.

BEING PREPARED

That so many of Sandy’s victims were elderly is no surprise. Glenn Corbett, a volunteer fire department captain in Waldwick and an expert on housing codes at John Jay College in New York, says most homes are not equipped to withstand long power outages that threaten the lives of older men and women.

"We act as if all we need to do is prepare for storms that will disrupt our lives for, maybe, a day. If these larger, more devastating storms are going to continue, we have to rethink how we deal with those who are trapped in their homes or want to stay put," says Corbett. He noted that none of the victims were in their 20s or 30s because they are more mobile than the elderly and also because they are often responsible for children.

"Parents with small children won’t take chances with their kids," says Corbett. "They’re not going to stay in a dark, unheated home. Older men and women who don’t have young children think they can tough it out."

Trish Colucci of Flanders, who runs a company — Peace of Mind Care Management Services — that monitors and coordinates care for elderly clients, says the old and those who care for them need to plan more carefully for storms like Sandy.

"Seniors have to have a source of light and heat and a way of calling for help," Colucci says. "They have to have access to medications and they need to arrange to have people check on them."

One expert on aging says an increasing number of elderly people want to live alone and independently. "It gives them a sense of pride and usefulness, but they do face challenges, including getting through storms like this one," says Deborah Carr, head of Rutgers University’s sociology department.

She says, because of technology, older adults remain in frequent contact with their children and other family members even if they live alone.

"They’re not necessarily isolated in the sense they are not in touch with their relatives," she says. But that technology relies on power and when that power fails, the elderly do find themselves alone — often far from children who live far away.

Carr says, "The problem is getting prepared for storms like this."