New York = Hell On Earth

Storms kill one, disrupt travel around New York City

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/08/nyc.weather/index.html#cnnSTCText

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Strong winds and heavy rainstorms tore through the Big Apple early Wednesday, killing one person and wreaking havoc on the region's transit system and causing delays at two major airports.

Five other people have been injured throughout the city, most as a result of falling trees and flying objects when a tornado swept through Brooklyn shortly before 7 a.m. ET, Bloomberg said. (This was around the time I had just got out of work.)

Ashley's old neighborhood: The Sunset Park neighborhood in Brooklyn lost as many as 40 percent of its trees, according to Commissioner Joe Bruno of the city Office of Emergency Management.

Flash flooding warnings were briefly issued in New York City and surrounding areas after a strong thunderstorm moved through the region around 7 a.m., dumping up to 3 inches of rain in less than an hour over Manhattan and western and central Long Island.

"Due to severe flooding throughout the subway system, there are extensive delays on all subway lines," said a statement from the Metro Transit Authority. "Customers are advised when at all possible to use bus service." (This was still true when I left for work tonight, 15 hours after the rain stopped.)

But at least the rain cooled everyone off right? A heat advisory remains in effect for the New York City metro area, where the combination of high humidity from the morning's rainfall and afternoon temperatures in the 90s was expected to create heat indices around 100 degrees.

In related news my idiot backdoor neighbors left their laundry out on the line over night, which fell and clogged the drain in our backyard so our apartment flooded from the back. Meanwhile my land lord, having promised to send someone out to fix the drain in our light well just never got around to it until to day, so we flooded from the front too. By the time someone got out there to help us it had easily reached the 100 degree mark.