Macroburst: The Forest Hills Tornado

On September 16th, 2010, a severe and unexpected storm system charged eastward across New York City and adjacent boro's spawning two tornadoes and a Macroburst. The first tornado touched down in Brooklyn, with sustained winds of 80 mph. The second tornado hit northern Queens, this one with sustained winds of nearly 100 mph. In the neighborhoods of Middle Village and Forest Hills, a rare event resulting in winds of over 125 mph leveled trees, buried cars and caused widespread structural damage to many homes.


I was reading Stephen King’s The Mist one summer morning in July of 1986.
“Old trees want to hurt you. And I think they’d kill you if they could.”
Under a thick leafy canopy on the deck of a small Pennsylvania cottage, I read the line again.
I remember it today as if it was only yesterday.
“Old trees want to hurt you. And I think they’d kill you if they could.”
That single line, so awe inspiring, its powerful picture painted so succinctly has lived in my mind and most likely my soul for decades.
I never dreamed that one day I would come to understand it almost intimately.

1. Before the chainsaws.

There is something about New York City in the immediate days following the conclusion of another Labor Day weekend. The overall mood seems to change from relaxed to one of almost solitude as another summer season unofficially makes its way into the great hall of memories. The typically frenetic pulse of a corporate world still reeling from a down economy remains placid, yet hopeful.
Some type of weather front was due to move in during the evening hours. I had not paid a lot of attention to the early morning forecast, noting only that rain would arrive right in time for the evening commute. I privately welcomed the warmer temperature and humidity following several unseasonably cooler days. While Mother Nature had chosen to jump straight into fall, I was hoping for a long Indian summer this year. Work had quickly picked up that second week of September. On the afternoon of the 16th, I had been dispatched to an upscale Fifth Avenue retailer to oversee what should have been a simple equipment set-up for an evening party. After several hours of placating the uptight client, I was simply looking forward to getting out of there. It took a moment to register the headlights driving past the front door. The ferocity of the falling rain dominated my immediate thoughts followed by the disappointment of having to wait around a little longer than I hoped.
“It’s like Armageddon out there,” I jokingly said to one of the technicians.
The rain was definitely impressive, the storm unexpected. Turning to the client I reassured her that rain of this magnitude often ends quickly. I’ll never understand why I felt the need to instill a sense of positive reinforcement that the show would indeed go on. When the rain tapered off and the sky had lightened to its normal evening shade, I traversed the 14 blocks back to the office in a light drizzle and called home to mention I was running a few minutes late. My wife’s outrageous claim of a tornado touching down sounded typically over-dramatized, something I blithely poked fun at. My immediate surroundings showed no signs of anything out of the ordinary. Her return phone call a few minutes later told me to avoid taking the Long Island Railroad and opt for the subway instead. While far more expensive than the underground mode of transportation, I prefer taking the railroad which usually deposits me in my hometown in less than fifteen minutes. The scene in Penn Station upon my arrival was one I had witnessed many times before when the railroad is unexpectedly experiencing service delays. An announcement from the overhead speakers cited debris on the tracks as the reason for the system wide suspension. Relegated to the fact that the homeward bound commute would take a little longer, I reluctantly followed the slow moving mob towards the subway. Knowing that the Queens bound trains would be horrifically overcrowded; I boarded a train in the opposite direction first, with the hope that a downtown station would be far less chaotic.
The gamble paid off. I settled down into a seat, opened my book and never looked up until reaching my stop roughly 45 minutes later.
Forest Hills has undergone several transformations during my time here as a resident. When I first laid down roots in the mid 1990’s several bars and clubs pervaded the main part of town. Now, known more for its shopping, restaurants and banks (which seemed to have popped up every hundred feet or so), it has become one of the most populous areas in the borough of Queens. Clients would often raise their eyebrows at my mention of a Forest Hills address before I lightheartedly informed them that I walked through that neighborhood to arrive at mine. Comprised of many Tudor style homes on cobblestone streets lined with mighty trees, Forest Hills Gardens is often associated as a place for the privileged or elite. It is also home to the exclusive West Side Tennis Club, which sits in the shadow of the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. The original site of the U.S Open, the structure is also an integral part of the New York City Music Trail, having hosted many renowned artists including the Beatles who played there prior to their iconic appearance at nearby Shea Stadium.
Ascending the stairs from the subway I privately sneered at the light drizzle still falling. The sight of leaves and twigs strewn across the sidewalk added some credence to my wife’s earlier proclamation of a brutal storm. The unexpected scene of a major thoroughfare closed to traffic due to a sizeable fallen tree stretched across the road stunted my forward motion. I looked around in total disbelief at the surreal scene before me, only now becoming cognizant of the rising crescendo of unending sirens both near and in the distance. The continual flashes I had attributed only to heat lightning came not from the sky, but from the multiple cameras and cell phones. The people who held them spoke in hushed tones, or not at all. I overheard a bus driver notifying a small crowd on the corner that service had been completely suspended. That was when I noticed that just over his shoulder the front door on the Citibank behind him had been ripped off its hinges. Reaching for my cell phone, I placed a call home to describe the scene that I was looking at, but could not get through.
No surprise.
Like the great blackout of 2003 or the horrific events spawned on 9/11, cell service was obviously overburdened. Heading away from town and into The Gardens I could see the revolving lights of several emergency vehicles ahead illuminating the incredible sight of a monstrous tree horizontally splayed across the street. Beyond and in all directions, I witnessed much more of the same carnage. Things like this don’t happen here, my mind reeled, falling back on the trusted assumption that it can’t happen here!
Devastation beyond comprehension.
It amazed me that the neighborhood still had electricity.
With no other option, I veered down one of the side streets in an effort to reach home, none of which were passable in any type of vehicle, others completely impenetrable on foot. At one point I had gotten turned around so many times, that I had actually lost track of where I stood. Most of the trivial landmarks that I would only subconsciously recognize were gone, obscured by the incredible amount of flora now at eye level, leaves, limbs and branches that until recently had resided in the sky high above. In the darkness, I could barely make out the makes or models of cars crushed and buried underneath, nor could I see many of the cables spread at my feet or suddenly dangling in front of my face until it was nearly too late. Realizing that most of these were just telephone or cable wires, I still took extra caution to keep a safe distance away. Finally arriving home, I made the mistake of telling my son he would most certainly be spending Friday at home and not at the elementary school I had just walked past. While the building seemed to have escaped nature’s wrath unscathed, the immediate area surrounding it would make it impossible for kids to get there.
And dangerous.
Mayor Bloomberg didn’t see it that way.
I have very few positive things to say in regards to any form of government. I have seen countless stupid decisions made with little or no regard to public feelings or safety. Opening schools the following morning in the immediately affected areas was absurd and downright irresponsible!
My wife felt that I was overreacting when I had finally reached home equipped with extra milk, water, flashlight batteries and bags of ice. We had not lost power as yet, but I had become convinced that as cleanup crews began the task of clearing trees and removing limbs from overhead power lines that electricity would certainly be cut at some point. I remember co-workers ridiculing my decision to go downstairs to the ATM and withdraw some emergency funds as news of the Pentagon being hit by a third hijacked plane unfolded on the morning of 9/11. There was no one in the bank at that moment. An hour later, the line was out the door and around the corner.
Call it instinctual preparedness.

2. Clean-up and Reckoning

Following a night filled with the sounds of sirens and helicopters, the hum of chainsaws now dominated this late summer morning where daylight brought with it a peaceful picture of destruction. Blue sky, a warm breeze and bright sunlight belied the scene outside. Remarkably our street had been primarily spared while only a handful of homes away on the adjoining cross street, everything was in complete disarray. The roots of many downed trees had upturned several sections of sidewalk, another obstacle to be concerned about as I unbelievably ushered my seven-year old to school, instructing him to be wary of downed wires while simultaneously raising branches out of the way so he and several others could get by. Arriving teachers, many of who had traveled from vicinities unaffected by the storm stared in awe while voicing their own discontent at school being open. Parents from other parts of the neighborhood reiterated tales of horror including blown out windows and bookcases being knocked over in high-rise apartments. With one ear attuned to the multiple conversations, my eyes fell upon the unbelievable sight of the school’s flagpole bent in the middle at a near perfect ninety degree angle. Damaged homes, cars and trees aside, it was the vision of this one lone flagpole that I will probably most remember long after this incident has become a distant memory.
One part tourist, one part intruder is how I felt while I negotiated the streets with both digital camera and video camera. In the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the immediate urge to document it. Securely at home in Queens, I committed those memories only to the written page. Similar to that sad day, I had loosely witnessed this tragedy safely from afar. Only through the miracle that is You Tube have I been allowed a brief glimpse of what it actually felt like much closer to the point of impact at the time that it was happening. The powers that be had yet to confirm that any type of tornado had touched down, though through the eyes of everyone in town, there could be no other explanation. Part of it was morbid fascination, but the urge to shoot video served more as an extension of my need to fully document this event. There are people in other parts of the country, certainly other parts of the world who have experienced something of this magnitude several times over. When I look at the pictures and the video, see the local news clips or just walk the streets, I still cannot believe that I would ever see something like this first hand, so up close and personal.
It is personal.

* There is a house that I walk past everyday as I meander through the Gardens on my commute home that I am simply in awe of. During the spring months when the flowers are in full bloom under the crown of such magnificent trees I have often stopped on several occasions just to admire it, telling myself that next time I will photograph it.
Next spring the flowers will bloom there again.
The majestic trees, so grand and prominent however are now gone.
I wonder if the homeowners will miss them as much as I.

* I was on the street looking up towards the sound of a chainsaw emanating from somewhere behind the mass of leaves and limbs that obscured the upstairs windows of a home. Someone had to begin the task of clearing whatever debris they could before the professionals would arrive to remove the monstrosity from the front lawn. Unable to see who was behind the window, I turned away when screams rose from somewhere behind me. I quickly looked back to see a raccoon come out of the top of the tree and race down the trunk towards street level, desperate to escape the intrusive buzzing of the piercing saw. I had not considered whom, or for that matter what else had been displaced by the storm.

* Outside the West Side Tennis Club, I found another sight that will forever remain ingrained in my memory. The mutilated and fallen fences underneath a litter of tree limbs obscuring a number of tennis courts would make dramatic news photos, but it was a lone SUV remarkably undamaged sitting alongside the entrance that might garner a bit of interest had anyone paid closer attention. The small sliver of branch that had pierced the taillight on the passenger side left little more than broken pieces of plastic on the street beneath. The speed at which it had traveled must have been similar to that of a bullet shot from a gun. The other end clearly visible on the inside showed little damage as well, seemingly a perfect incision.

Several months after the events of 9/11, I made my first trip to the downtown area of Manhattan. Dropping by for a quick meeting with a client, I grew impatient at the slow moving crowd climbing the subway stairs, agitatedly wondering what the holdup was. When I reached daylight, I immediately staggered back, the shock of the view before me almost too much to handle. On many occasions in summer’s past, I had exited from that same set of stairs to meet friends for lunchtime concerts on the World Trade Center Plaza. A lifetime New Yorker, I had barely acknowledged the view from that staircase of the buildings that defined the downtown skyline. On this cold December afternoon. Looking across that street for the first time after the buildings had fallen, I could see glimpses of the Hudson River and New Jersey beyond, something that had long been obscured by the once mighty twin towers. A defining moment in my life, it did not bring any sense of closure to the horror that was 9/11. Instead, for the first time, I truly understood what those buildings had meant to the city of New York. The gaping hole left behind could never be filled.
Not on an emotional level.
Walking home last night on the same streets that I always have, I experienced a complete sense of Déjà vu. On what had once been a tree lined street seemingly always covered in shade, I had a completely un-obscured view of the train tracks and the buildings beyond.
I stared in shocked silence.
Another defining moment.
Like New York City, the Forest Hills skyline would forever be changed.

The streets I have walked daily for more than fifteen years are barely recognizable.
Neighbors can now freely look upon each other whether they choose to or not.
The sound of rustling leaves from a passing breeze is clearly diminished.
Beyond the shock value, what is left in the wake is simply sad.

Tom Mortensen
September 2010