Two tornadoes struck New York City on Saturday, damaging homes and trees, the wind were up to 110 miles per hour.
However, no serious injuries were reported as residents had an advance notice.
Video taken by bystanders showed a funnel cloud sucking up water, then sand, as the first moved through the Breezy Point section of the Rockaway peninsula in Queens.
The second hit west, in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn also near the water, about seven minutes later.The weather service had issued a tornado warning for Queens and Brooklyn at around 10.40 a.m. on Saturday, but the storm took people by surprise when it struck about 20 minutes later.
Mr Peter Maloney, a Breezy Point neighborhood resident, said “I was showing videos of tornadoes to my four-year-old on my phone, and two minutes later, it hit. Just like they always say, it sounded like a train.’’
In the storm’s wake, the community of seaside bungalows was littered with broken flower pots, knocked-down fences and smashed windows.
At the Breezy Point Surf Club, the tornado ripped the roofs off rows of cabanas, scattered deck chairs and left a heavy metal barbecue and propane tank sitting in the middle of a softball field, at least 100 yards from any nearby home.
“It picked up picnic benches. It picked up dumpsters,’’ the surf club General Manager, Thomas Sullivan, said.
“However, half an hour later, the weather was beautiful, but I had to close the club to clean up the damage.’’
The second tornado tore through parts of Brooklyn with strong winds, causing structural damage to several homes and felling trees.
In Buffalo, across New York state, strong winds from a broad front of thunderstorms blew roofing off some buildings and sent bricks falling into the street.
The city of Albany cancelled the evening portion of an outdoor jazz festival because of the threat of storms, and hundreds of upstate New York homes lost power as the weather system moved through.
The storm system killed four people, including a child in Oklahoma on Friday.
Lizann Maher, a worker at Kennedy’s Restaurant at the edge of Jamaica Bay, said “I saw a swirling cone kind of thing with something flying in it. It came down and then head back out into the water toward Brooklyn.”
-Culled from Vanguard