Severe storms leave trail of damage behind across Tri-State

Thursday, May 23, 2024

Power outages, trees down as storms move through Tri-State area

Marcus Solis has the latest on storm damage in Orange County.

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Severe storms brought down trees across the Tri-State area and caused power outages and ground stops at local airports on Thursday morning.

JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark airports all reported ground stops just after 10 a.m. due to the storms. The ground stops expired by noon, but officials said there would be departure delays for the rest of the day.

ALSO READ | AccuWeather forecast for the Tri-State area

In Orange County, officials in Greenwood Lake said the storms left damage in their wake with downed power lines and trees.

Residents in the area said the storm brought hail and high winds and moved through quickly, like a quick burst. It caused trees and limbs to topple, landing on homes, crushing cars and ripping down power lines.

"The rain was nearly horizontal. It was awful," said Greenwood Lake resident Uli Grau. "Looking out the window we couldn't see anything. With the trees we could see enormous velocity of the wind that hit us."

"Kind of like the Wizard of Oz. Stuff was blowing past the window. That's how it looked," resident Harvey Murphy said.

Authorities said two middle school buses were significantly impacted by the impassable roads. There were students on both buses but all were safe.

Officials said the specific roads to avoid in the are: Jersey Avenue, East Shore Road, Edgemere Avenue, Waterstone Bridge and 17A.

Over in Westchester County, there were more than 3,000 homes without power in Yorktown as the fast-moving storm took down tree branches and caused damage.

Sonia Rincon has the update from Westchester County.

The Yorktown Central School District said Brookside School would have an early dismissal due to a full power outage.

Town Supervisor Ed Lachterman said the police department was updating road closures and the highway department was cutting down trees that had fallen and weren't impacted by wires.

So far no injuries have been reported, but roads there were hit hard.

"Thank God, no injuries," Lachterman said. "We did have a house struck by lightning this morning right down the road. No injuries. Everyone was safe. And, you know, we've had some transformer fires, we've had some brush fire. But thank God our first responders around here are phenomenal."

And in New Jersey, the strong storms also left damage behind in Hamburg.