A severe thunderstorm rolled across the five boroughs Sunday night, flooding roads, downing power lines and snarling traffic.
The thunder began booming around 6 p.m., accompanied by downpours of 2
to 3 inches an hour that swamped low-lying areas of Staten Island and
Queens.
“The car in front of me stopped, so I stopped, and all of a sudden my
car filled with water. It rose so quick it was up to my waist in
minutes,” said Stephen Mitchell, 67, of Pennsylvania, whose $135,000
2014 BMW M6 was totaled in floodwaters on the Long Island Expressway
near Utopia Pkwy. late Sunday.
Both the LIE and Cross Island Pkwy. were closed in both directions at
points due to flooding, authorities said. In Staten Island, firefighters
rescued drivers whose cars were stuck in the rapidly rising waters on
Amboy Rd. and Ainsworth Ave. in Bay Terrace.
Parts of the Staten Island Railroad were washed out, and the storm also caused airport delays.
In Astoria, live power lines came crashing to the ground at 21st St.
and 22nd Dr. around 7:30 p.m., authorities said, and outages were
reported in parts of Staten Island, Queens, and Brooklyn.
The storm calmed around 9 p.m., but rains were expected to pick up again early Monday and continue into Tuesday.
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