Severe Weather Leaves Path Of Destruction On Long Island

MINEOLA, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Residents on Long Island spent Thursday cleaning up, after being hit hard by severe weather overnight.

As CBS2's Vanessa Murdock reported, the storms The storm left a path of destruction as winds up to 50 mph Wednesday night and into early Thursday morning led to downed trees and wires across Nassau and Suffolk counties.

Wires sparked and cars were sent bursting into flames. Huge chunks of buildings also cracked off and crashed to the ground.

In Great Neck, an old oak tree was uprooted by the near-hurricane force winds. It fell right onto power lines, knocking them off the grid.

"My entire house was shaking," said Josh Aharanoff of Great Neck.

Aharonoff said the scene became chaotic.

"We heard fire trucks all around; people walking around with flashlights," he said.

In the light day, Aharonoff discovered shattered glass. His patio table was demolished by the force of the monster storm.

The storm raked it the East Coast, with radar showing multiple lines exploding as the storm moved off to the northeast.

"It was actually a little scary," said Terry Haupt of Lindenhurst. "I thought something might, you know, come through the doors through the windows."

"It almost sounded like a hurricane," said Phil Hickman of Hicksville.

And in isolated spots, it even looked like a hurricane had hit. Massapequa got hit hard.

A downed power line on New Hampshire Road sparked an inferno in which two cars were destroyed. Both belong to Susan Cosgrove and her husband.

"All of a sudden, the windows started to glow orange and I looked out the window and, 'Oh my God, the cars on fire,'" Cosgrove said.

Meanwhile, Tricia Reehill of Massapequa feared the worst when a tree smashed right through the back of her house. Her 15-year-old daughter was upstairs on the third floor at the time.

"I heard the big boom and I heard her screaming," said Tricia Reehill of Massapequa. "It was horrible."

The tree came up at the roots and came down on the one-story ranch home on Chicago Avenue in Massapequa, causing damage to the corner of the house, WCBS 880's Sean Adams reported.

The tree limbs just missed the teenage girl.

"Came through the roof -- straight down right above her bed and from the side because of the shape of my house," Reehill said. "She's fine. She was very shaken up last night."

"It sounded like a freight train actually going through," neighbor Willy Curran told Grymes. "I don't know if it was a tornado or not, it was lightning very hard and I did hear a loud bang."

PSEG Long Island said early Thursday that 486 outages have affected about 36,000 customers.

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