Cleanup continues across New York City after remnants of Debby bring down hundreds of trees citywide
NEW YORK – Crews across New York City spent Saturday cleaning up the damage caused by the remnants of Debby.
The city Parks Department said they received more than 500 reports of downed trees citywide. Queens had the highest number of service requests with 216, followed by the Bronx and Brooklyn.
Hundreds of trees fall across NYC as storms move through
With dry weather and the sun on their backs, crews were cleaning up what ended up being a domino effect of damage on the corner of 103rd Street and Christie Avenue in the Corona section of Queens.
"That pole snapped, the tree snapped, and then when it came down, it probably took those [wires] down," neighbor Bob Massano said.
Massano has been living there with his brother Bill for about 50 years. Both said they've never seen a storm this intense on their block that didn't knock out their power.
Massano texted Con Edison, alerting them about potentially dangerous live wires Friday since his electricity was still working at home.
"I was hoping they'd come and shut the power off or they'd do something like that, but Con Ed, I know they were busy," he said.
But the automated responses back weren't helpful.
"We never lost power. They kept saying 'your power's gonna be restored by midnight,' 'your power's gonna be restored by 3 o'clock in the morning.' I kept telling them, that's not the problem, the dangers is the live wires falling on the houses," Massano said.
Con Edison said anyone concerned about downed wires must stay away from them, treat them as if they're live and call 911.
Neighbors along Christie Avenue said multiple cars were damaged, but they're grateful no one got hurt – although there was a close call.
"I saved his life," neighbor William Narvaez said.
Narvaez happened to help a man who was sleeping on the sidewalk move away from a tree moments before it fell. He and crews who were there Saturday said the tree was rotting and it was only a matter of time before it came down. Narvaez was for a walk just before the storm did its damage.
"I was 10 minutes just walking out, and the tree falls," he said. "There is always a reason you are in some places ... I can't even imagine that."
Downed wires leave Bronx residents, businesses in the dark
On East 234th Street, high winds knocked down a huge tree and took out the power lines, which sparked in the middle of the street right outside Cristy and Aleck McEwan's window.
"Strong winds were coming through. You heard the tree fall, caught one of the power lines, a bunch of explosions and lights immediately went off," Aleck McEwan said.
Saturday's sunshine was a welcome return, but those without air conditioning could've done without the heat.
"If you open the window and let the breeze in... But it's hot. Yeah, we're sweating," Aleck McEwan said.
Bronx neighbors said it was an usual storm considering they didn't get a lot of rain; it was just the wind causing problems.
Meanwhile, at Bella Napoli on East 240th, the dinner hour was busier than usual since their second location around the corner was in the dark all day. Thankfully, workers were able to move perishable products out of that fridge to keep the pies coming.
Storms from Debby knock out power to thousands in NYC area
Con Edison said since Friday, there were 4,200 power outages citywide. Most have since been restored.
At its peak, the storm knocked out power to 14,000 Con Ed customers in Westchester County.
As of Saturday night, nearly 100 Con Ed customers were still out of service.
Some outages continued for JCP&L with 545 customers still impacted Saturday. PSEG Long Island listed just over 100 customers without power Saturday night.
In Rockland and Orange counties, just over 100 customers were still in the dark.
PSE&G had about two dozen outstanding outages in New Jersey.