News - Tornado Hits Queens and Brooklyn

Though the National Weather Service has not officially declared it a tornado yet, anyone who witnessed the high winds (80+ mph), hail, lightning, debris being tossed through the air, and downed trees can probably say "Yes, it was a freaking tornado." Between 5pm and 6pm on Thursday, September 16, a tornado began in Park Slope, Brooklyn and moved through Middle Village, Forest Hills (my neighborhood), and Bayside in Queens.




Video filmed in Kew Gardens (Queens).

At the moment, about 18 hours after the storm, I look out my window and still see entire trees tangled around telephone and electrical wires littering the ground. I'm watching people pick branches out of the back seats of their cars, cleaning their shattered windshields one piece of glass at a time. I can see yellow police tape and hear sirens rushing from one end of Yellowstone Boulevard to the other.

Thankfully, there have been reports that only one person, Iline Levakis, was killed when a tree crashed through her windshield. From the news story:
"The ferocious winds sent a massive tree crashing onto the car of Iline Levakis after she pulled off the Grand Central Parkway near Jewel Avenue in Forest Hills to escape the blinding rain.".




Video filmed in Park Slope (Brooklyn).

Both Queens and Brooklyn reported at least two partial building collapses each.

And apparently, one or two tornados hit New York every year. It seems this one is the first in many years to actually leave an impact. That is, unless the National Weather Service decides to just keep calling it a "tornado-like storm" instead of a tornado...

Once everything settled down after the tornado, I walked around my neighborhood and shot some photos. These are all taken within a one block radius of my apartment building.















More photos can be found at my LiveJournal and Flickr. (All photos are uploaded on LiveJournal. More to come on Flickr.)