NYC tornados

I was with Sharon at Wicked Delicate's film studio in Brooklyn, near Park Slope around 5pm when the storm came. We were on the third floor of an old industrial canning factory, refurbished in posh lofts and working film studios. I was excited when the storm began because I love summer thunderstorms, but it quickly turned into something pretty scary. It was hard to shut the windows the wind was howling so loud and we were all looking down on the street seeing timber and fencing flying down the sidewalks like pieces of paper propelled by the wind and rains. The trees were being shaken like rats in the mouth of a terrier and the sky was green and ethereal. Soon it was all over, come and gone so quickly. An unexpected freak storm ripping through Brooklyn and Queens.

On the way home there was all sorts of damage. Metal fencing ripped down on the ground, some roofs sagging or even ripped off, flotsam and debris blown everywhere, and the worst, so many beautiful trees damaged. In many of the neighborhoods in Brooklyn the trees suffered terribly with some uprooted or huge branches toppled onto the street, over gates, or on cars. Along the way Sharon and I were botanizing and ID'ing who's who. The sycamores, pears, and weak barked catalpas were hit the hardest. Such a say day. A day of reckoning and death for many beautiful old trees lining the sidewalks and parks of New York City, some over 250 years old. Just imagine the stories they could tell....

I didn't snap too many pictures, but the scene throughout many of the neighborhoods in our area was pretty akin to this. Many big branches ripped off lying on cars or blocking the sidewalk, and in some places entire trees ripped out of the ground and flung down in wrath. They will be missed and remembered on this strange day, when tornados swept through New York...