What to Know
- The rain is gone but the tri-state is still cleaning up from the severe weather that hit the area Monday afternoon
- The severe thunderstorms rolled in and brought strong winds and torrential rains
- The storm flooded streets, toppled trees and led to power outages and significant fight delays; no injuries were reported
The rain might be gone, but tri-state residents are still dealing with damage from Monday's storm.
Cleanup was underway Monday night into Tuesday after the round of severe weather toppled trees, flooded streets and cut power in communities from New Jersey to parts of the Hudson Valley and western Long Island.
In Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, a tree fell onto a house. Nobody was injured.
"We just heard this huge crack and a thud," Justine Moran, who lives in the Ho-Ho-Kus home, said. "I ran up to my room and all the way down the side wall there’s a huge crack."
In Pictures: Severe Thunderstorms Hammer Tri-State
Local
After a hot and humid day, the powerful storms moved in on the heels of a cold front and hammered the city and surrounding areas. Multiple time-lapse videos showed dark clouds descending east towards Manhattan as buildings disappeared behind a wall of rain. Lightning flashed over Greenwich Village in one video.
The tempest toppled trees from the Hudson Valley to New Jersey — heavy tree damage was reported on Manhattan's Upper West Side. One tree fell onto a car at West 78th Street and another split in half, blocking a street at West 167th Street. In New Jersey, multiple trees crashed onto cars in Bergen County and a downed tree fell onto part of the Palisades Parkway.
In Hawthorne, New Jersey, a tree crashed into the bedroom of Tom Bushnauskas as he slept. He was not injured, but had to tell his dad that a tree was in their home.
"He was like, 'What do you mean the tree fell down?'" Bushnauskas told NBC 4 New York. "I'm like, 'Well, it's in my room.'"
Felled trees brought down powerlines across the tri-state, cutting power to nearly 2,000 people in New Jersey and more than 2,000 people on Long Island, according to PSE&G. The majority of lights are back on, but PSE&G is still reporting minimal outages Tuesday morning.
Kelvin Smith, of Greenburgh, lost power when a small tree fell onto powerlines.
"I opened up all the windows," Smith said. "All the windows and the shades just to let some light in."
Flood waters poured into the streets of Red Hook and Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, and washed over a parking lot in Elizabeth and over roads in Weehawken, New Jersey. Part of the busy Bronx River Parkway was flooded, and cars moved through swamped streets in Rosyln Heights, on Long Island.
Rain seeped into the Dekalb Avenue station in Brooklyn, covering a platform in water. And motorists on an FDR Drive underpass had to contend with rain falling from an overpass above.
Area airports -- Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark -- instituted a traffic management program ahead of the severe weather. During the height of the storm, wind gusts neared 60 mph at Newark Airport, where flights were delayed more than 5 hours late Monday night. At Kennedy, they were delayed 4 1/2 hours. Only LaGuardia had returned to normal by 10 p.m.
Tuesday and Wednesday will be nice, with highs in the low 80s and an abundance of sunshine, Storm Team 4 said.
