a walk through the slope, after the storm

This evening a line of thunderstorms ripped through NYC with strong winds, heavy rains, and hail. While there’s been no official confirmation of a tornado yet, there certainly is widespread damage throughout the city, including one death in Queens that’s been attributed to the storm. In its wake, Twitter has been blowing up with reports and photos of the damage, and you can see several videos over at Gothamist.

On my way home from work, I took a long walk to survey my neighborhood in Park Slope and definitely saw lots of downed trees, broken glass, damaged cars, and debris. I also saw neighbors pitching in and helping each other, teams of firemen wielding chainsaws, and bumper-to-bumper traffic as roads were closed and re-routed due to damage.

But the craziest sight? A huge steel road sign sheared off its base and carried across an intersection at 4th Avenue and 19th Street. Check out some of my photos below, and send us a tip if you have shots of your own to share!

Neighbors, helping neighbors with power tools:

Firefighters, out in force with chainsaws and using their trucks for towing large tree limbs:

And a street sign sheared off in the middle of 4th Avenue in the South Slope. If you look closely at the second picture on the left, you can see how it broke off and traveled across the intersection: