This isn’t Kansas, Dorothy — this twister is hitting New York City!
Two terrifying tornadoes straight out of “The Wizard of Oz” ripped through Brooklyn and Queens yesterday, toppling roofs, tipping trees and making beachgoers scramble for safety.
“I was in the office and I stood in the doorway frozen,” said Megan Amberly, 21, a lifeguard at the Breezy Point Swim Club in Queens. “I watched the roofs fly off the cabanas into the pool.
“All the other lifeguards ran into the shack. It was like the movie ‘Twister’!”
PHOTOS: TORNADO RIPS THROUGH NEW YORK
Minutes later, another tornado hurled through Canarsie.
Norman Goodchild, 64, was in his basement when his back door swung open with such force he couldn’t pull it shut.
“It was a soldier-like tornado. It was decisive,” he said. “It came and did it’s work and left. It was sudden, swift and quick.”
Some of the damage was so bad, shell-shocked New Yorkers were forced to evacuate their homes. “My roof is there,” said Charlene Khan, pointing to a patch of sidewalk in front of her two-family residence on Avenue N.
An uprooted tree is seen in Canarsie. (Benny J. Stumbo)
WARPATH:And impales a car at Bergen Beach on its rampage through Queens and Brooklyn neighborhoods. (William Farrington)
WARPATH:Yesterday’s tornado rips into Breezy Point, Queens. (Kevin Gori)
“I was holding on to the sink in the basement, and it felt like a vacuum, like you were being sucked up. Everything in my back yard is now in one corner.”
Standing in her bedroom, looking at her damaged roof, she said: “All you can see is sky. And it took all of 45 seconds. But this is Canarsie — if it drizzles, it floods.”
The storm first made landfall at around 11 a.m. on Breezy Point at the far end of the Rockaways after forming as a waterspout.
The National Weather Service sent a team out yesterday to assess the damage and determine how strong the tornado was on a scale of 0 to 5.
After the wild wind did its worst, American Red Cross responders checked on damaged homes, parks workers tossed downed branches into a wood chipper, and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly visited the area.
No injuries were reported, but there were downed power lines, overturned grills and slabs of roof strewn across neighborhoods.
The storm was so strong it forced the US Open to postpone the women’s final match between Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka until today.
Some Brooklynites blamed the city for failing to take steps that would have lessened the damage.
“It would not be so severe if the city were properly maintaining the trees,” said Leslie Benitez, 43, of Canarsie.
Benitez said she and her neighbors often call 311 to try to get the city to prune the large branches in her low-lying neighborhood.
The brief but powerful storm stopped traffic on the Belt Parkway and amazed onlookers.
“I was sitting with my dad driving out to Long Island for a baseball tournament when he saw it,” said Zack Rosenthal, 17, who lives in New Jersey. “You couldn’t deny it, the way the wind was blowing. It ripped right across the Belt Parkway.”