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Isaias Aftermath: Tropical Storm Levels Trees, Leaves Huge Swaths Of NYC Without Power
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Aug 5, 2020
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By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Aug 5, 2020
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Tropical Storm Isaias completed its deadly rampage up the East Coast on Tuesday night, killing at least six people since it made landfall as a hurricane in North Carolina, knocking out power for millions, and leaving substantial wreckage in its path.
In New York City, the quick-moving storm unleashed limited rain but ferocious winds — with gusts as high as 78 miles per hour in some areas. Trees toppled onto power lines, subway tracks, homes, and vehicles. Debris, scaffolding and unsecured pools careened through the air.
In Queens, a 60-year-old construction worker, Mario Siles, was crushed to death by an oak tree while sitting in his van. Another woman is in critical condition after being struck by a falling branch in Brownsville, Brooklyn.
At the peak of the storm, the city was receiving more than 100 calls per minute to 911. The volume of calls nearly overwhelmed the emergency system, leading to "real delays" in response times, the mayor acknowledged on Wednesday morning.
All told, Con Ed customers reported the second most weather-related power outages in the company's history, after Sandy. Of the 260,000 people without power, nearly 200,000 remained in the dark on Wednesday morning. Around 45,000 of those customers were based in Queens, according to the utility.
A Con Ed spokesperson said that the full restoration would take multiple days.
"It was an extraordinary, powerful storm, very brief, but very intense," de Blasio said. "This is turning out to be one of the most serious weather events since Hurricane Sandy."
The storm forced the closure of all above-ground subway trains, while temporarily shutting down service entirely on Metro-North, the Long Island Railroad, and NJ Transit. Most of that service had been restored, according to MTA Chairman Pat Foye.
In a radio interview on Wednesday morning, Foye said Isaias was "in some ways, a worse storm than Superstorm Sandy."
With extreme weather events projected to occur more frequently as a result of the climate crisis, some local officials said Isaias underscored the city's lack of progress in resiliency planning.
Bay Ridge Councilman Justin Brannan, whose district is currently suffering from widespread outages, blamed some of the damage on the city's lack of funding for the Parks Department, the agency tasked with maintaining potentially hazardous trees.
He added that the mayor's focus on South Street Seaport, which did not see any flooding, "shows how tone deaf they are to a five borough resiliency plan."
"You’ve got 520 miles of coastline, a lot of them filled with low-income communities of color who are on the front lines of extreme weather," said Brannan. "For whatever reason, we continue to prioritize Lower Manhattan."
Tagged
weather
climate crisis
mayor bill de blasio
Tropical Storm
isaias
tropical storm isaias
Jake Offenhartz
Jake Offenhartz is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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