A brief but severe storm with winds of up to 160km/h swept through New York City yesterday, killing one person, uprooting trees and damaging cars.
The National Weather Service briefly issued tornado warnings yesterday evening for Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens.
Fire officials say one person was killed when a tree fell on a car in Queens. Numerous minor injuries were reported elsewhere.
Brooklyn resident Steven Harris said seven or eight rooftops blew off on his street. He said trees fell and knocked down power lines.
In the Park Slope neighbourhood, witnesses say the sky went pitch black at about 5.30pm. Trees started waving around like blades of grass. Large branches snapped and hit cars, smashing windshields.
"A huge tree limb, like 25 feet long, flew right up the street, up the hill and stopped in the middle of the air 50 feet up in this intersection and started spinning," said Steve Carlisle. "It was like a poltergeist."
"Then all the garbage cans went up in the air and this spinning tree hits one of them like it was a bat on a ball. The can was launched way, way over there," he said, pointing at a building about 120 feet away where a metal garbage can lay flattened.
Angela Bartolotta was in class at Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus, when the wind began to howl and the lights flickered.
"Then the windows blew in," she said. "Everybody got down. We thought the tree outside was going to come in."
The Long Island Rail Road said service was temporarily suspended between Penn Station and Jamaica because of fallen trees. Amtrak and New Jersey Transit were running with delays.
AP