NYC Twister?

When I think of the Tornados, I think of Kansas, and the Wizard of Oz.  I think of Dororthy and little Toto trying to survive.  When I think of Tornados, I definitely don't think of New York City!  But, that's what they are speculating happened last night in New York.

It was about 5:30pm and the city went dark.  I mean the clouds rolled in and it looked like it was midnight.  I left my office to walk home and the lightning started, then loud claps of thunder, then Hail!  I was trying to walk fast, so that I didn't have to fight the rain, but the floodgates opened and the rain came pouring down. 

      I stood under some scaffolding to take cover, realizing that standing under metal poles was not the best idea in a lightning storm. :)  But, at this point my entire body was soaked from head to toe.   For all of the southerners out there, it's impossible to get a cab in the city when it rains, especially around 6:00pm.  I finally begged an off-duty cab driver to take me home.  He resisted and complained and I told him I would give him a huge tip if he would just let me seek coverage in his car and drive me the few short blocks to my apartment.  He agreed!  Yeah!

Me being driven home in the cab! (just kidding)

Once I got home, I turned on the news to see that every major network was covering the storm.  There were 20, 000 people without power, multiple trees down across Queens, Brooklyn, and even the LIRR.  My friend was stuck on the train to Long Island for 8 hours because trees had fallen across the train tracks and were not passable. She was trapped on the train without food or water.  She left work yesterday at 5:00pm and finally got home this morning at 1:00am. The train ended up coming back to Penn Station in NYC and she found a ride with some others who hired a car service to take them home. 

 It took 3 hours in traffic.

People were trapped in their apartments because of major trees that had fallen covering their entrance. 

There were 181 lightning strikes!  It was insane! 

Now, the clean up efforts begin.

-City Belle

All photos courtesy of NY Times. (except for the 4 in the middle of the blog...those were shot by Country Boy)