Storms kill one, disrupt travel around New York City



NEW YORK (CNN) -- Strong winds and heavy rainstorms tore through the Big Apple early Wednesday, killing one person and wreaking havoc on the region's transit system and causing delays at two major airports.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said a woman died after her car became stuck in high water under an overpass on Staten Island and it was hit by another car.

Five other people have been injured throughout the city, most as a result of falling trees and flying objects when a tornado swept through Brooklyn shortly before 7 a.m. ET, Bloomberg said.

The National Weather Service confirmed the twister winds were up to 135 mph.

The Sunset Park neighborhood in Brooklyn lost as many as 40 percent of its trees, according to Commissioner Joe Bruno of the city Office of Emergency Management.

Many of them fell on vehicles and homes.

"I never thought this would happen in Brooklyn. ... Kansas maybe, but not here."

Source

Crazy. a friend of mine from Brooklyn took a bunch of pictures. Just goes to show mother nature can show her wrath anywhere.

I just finished reading this, and who would have ever thought a tornado would hit Brooklyn..I live across the river and we had temps. in the high 90's and sunny and humid all day...Goes to show you can't trust "Mother Nature"..

Yes, and eventually all of those tall skyscrapers will come down somehow if by bomb, tornado, hurricane, earthquake, whatever. Mother Nature is hot! My suggestion is to get out of all of those humongous skyscrapers and leave that city! Let Guliani and Hillary have it! Oh, the bible says, 'The meek shall inherit the earth.' Well, I don't want it!

I live in NYC and yesterday was a nightmare. I am supposed to be at work at 9am and I finally arrived at work after noon. The subways were flooded due to the rain - apparently the NYC subway tracks can only sustain up to an inch of rain an hour. I was stuck on a crowded hot bus for more than 3 hours for a trip that usually takes 30 minutes. We would stop at bus stops and there would be a crowd of more than 100 people waiting and they would mob the bus. Pushing, shoving, screaming trying to cram themselves onto this bus that was way overcrowded. The passengers started to mutiny and scream at the bus driver when he would slow down at the next stop - he finally got the idea and only stopped if someone was getting out. It is scary that 3 inches of rain can cause chaos like what happened yesterday.

That is weird weather. Something like this happened in a town where I lived a few years ago. An F1 tornado touched down in the heart of the city; I think it ripped the front off of Marshall's and destroyed part of K-mart. Thankfully where it happened was five miles from my house; and it was even farther than me because I was at the beach at the time. But it was the first tornado that had touched down in the town in at least 20 years.