Storm kills woman on Grand Central Parkway

A female motorist, 30, from Pennsylvania, died on the Grand Central Parkway in Queens near Jewel Avenue after a tree came down on the car she was in at about 5:50 p.m., New York City police said.

The storm, packing winds of 100 mph in the city, hit just after 5 p.m., when the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Staten Island. A warning was issued at 5:34 p.m. for Brooklyn and Queens that remained in effect until 6 p.m.

Traffic in both directions was blocked for hours along the Long Island Expressway in Queens because of downed trees and power lines near Exit 24. There also were reports of downed trees and debris across parts of the LIE in Queens and Nassau. On the westbound LIE service road near the Grand Central interchange, a handful of two-story-tall trees toppled onto houses.

Nassau police said a downed tree forced the closure of the intersection of Plandome and Stony Town roads in Manhasset, while police in Suffolk reported trees and wires down, mostly in the Huntington area.

Just before 9 p.m., the Long Island Power Authority reported 12,488 outages, concentrated in the towns of North Hempstead and Oyster Bay. Power was restored to most customers by midnight according to their web site.

The storm spawned winds of 50 to 60 mph across northern Nassau County. Winds were weaker in southern Nassau, with estimates topping 30 mph, said Brandon Smith, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Upton.

"It was one solid line of storms that developed over New Jersey and crossed New York City, then Long Island and Connecticut," he said, adding the storm brought jet stream winds to the ground level.

Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman drove through Great Neck, where some roads were blocked by fallen trees, but he noted the damage wasn't as bad as the freak storm that ripped through the area in June.

"It seems like the northern communities . . . got the brunt of it," he said. "But nothing like New York City got."

In the city, the high winds ripped roofs off several buildings. Fire officials were inspecting at least five brownstone buildings in Brooklyn where the roofs were peeled off by the wind. Con Edison reported 27,000 power outages in Queens alone.

Survey teams will visit Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island to assess damage today to determine if a tornado hit or if it was "straight-line winds," Smith said.

Ahmed Mian, 17, said he had just arrived at his father's Food Mart store in Flushing when the storm hit. A large tree in front of the store was uprooted and tipped over, crossing the southbound lanes of busy 164th Street.

"It just turned yellow," Mian said of the skies as the storm blew through. "The rain, you couldn't even see with your eyes."