Crews cleaning up after powerful storms bring down trees, knock out power in New Jersey
HEWITT, New Jersey (WABC) -- Crews were cleaning up in New Jersey after powerful storms, equipped with heavy rain and lightning, brought down trees and knocked out power to thousands of customers on Tuesday.
The Rossi family could see Tuesday night's storm coming over Greenwood Lake in the distance as they enjoyed some waterskiing, but then it blew right toward them.
"Tree branches blowing around, pool floats going over and stuff blowing out in the lake... it was quite unexpected," Ken Rossi said.
"The rain was coming sideways, and it looked like a whiteout, as if it was snowing," Pam Rossi said. "You couldn't see the lake at all."
It went from a whiteout to a blackout as a massive tree fell on their street in Hewitt, New Jersey, and knocked out power to about 2,000 people in the area.
Utility crews spent the evening restoring it, and cutting up the massive tree which was similar to one just cut down.
"Days later the one that we didn't touch did fall," John Rossi said.
The siblings were together Tuesday night to celebrate their mom's 95th birthday, who they say is fine, and so are all the houses in the neighborhood, but it was quite an evening.
"It was quite a storm, it was amazing. It really was," Pam Rossi said.
Crews restored their power, but it wasn't the only area that got hit with outages. JCP & L has been restoring power to about 10,000 customers in Monmouth and Ocean counties.
In Silver Lake, a large tree came crashing down, hitting part of a home with people inside eating dinner.
Fortunately, no one was hurt in the home.
Storms could also be seen rolling over Edgewater, New Jersey, with flashes of lightning, and blowing torrential rain in Belmar.
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