A round of severe thunderstorms ripped through the tri-state area overnight, knocking down trees and knocking out power for thousands of residents, including those in New York City.
“While more than 90,000 New Yorkers have had power restored after last night’s storms, thousands remain without power,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said Thursday morning. “Utility emergency crews are hard at work to restore power as soon as possible. If you are still facing an outage, please report it to your service provider.”
As of 11 a.m., nearly 30,000 New Yorkers remained without power, with temperatures expected to climb into the mid-80s as the day progresses. Another 45,000 residents in New Jerse y and nearly 50,000 people in Connecticut were also hit with outages after a night of intense thunderstorms. The severe weather rolled in Wednesday evening, after New Yorkers struggled through days of suffocating heat — often times topping 90 degrees — and humidity.
The storms brought fierce winds, with gusts topping 60 mph as well as booming thunder and lightning, starting around 8:30 p.m. There were numerous reports of downed trees and wires throughout northern New Jersey and into New York. It also snarled mass transit traffic, with Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North service affected. At one point, Metro-North’s Harlem Line was suspended from Valhalla to Hawthorne due to downed trees falling on tracks, while Hudson Line trains experienced delays of up to 40 minutes.