%environment_news_service%
NEW YORK, New York, August 4, 2020 (ENS) – Tropical Storm Isaias is racing north-northeastward across eastern New York near the state’s capital city Albany, carrying strong gusty winds, heavy rainfall and the threat of tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service. The tropical storm is moving about 20 miles per hour bearing maximum sustained winds of 65 mph. Tropical Storm Isaias claimed at least one life in New York City on Tuesday and critically injured another person, authorities said. A man was killed in Queens when a tree broken by powerful winds smashed his car Tuesday afternoon and in Brooklyn a woman was critically injured by a flying branch, officials said. In a radio interview Tuesday after the death, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio urged New Yorkers to stay indoors to avoid injury or even death. “It’s so sad we lost someone in Queens now from a falling tree branch and I just want to let all New Yorkers know we’ve got to take this storm seriously, it is a dangerous level of high winds,” de Blasio said. Tropical Storm Isaias has knocked out power in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. A building that collapsed on Bedford Avenue in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn buried a car but no one was injured. Transit officials shut down service on all Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Railroad lines due to a “substantial amount of damage from downed trees down utility poles,” according to Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman Pat Foye, who said, “Largely the problem in this storm is high winds and downed trees.” The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has banned tandem trailers and empty tractor-trailers on its bridges from noon to midnight on Tuesday. After making landfall as a hurricane near Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina just after 11 pm on Monday with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph, Isaias brought dangerous winds and heavy rain to eastern Virginia early Tuesday. Its top winds dropped to 70 miles per hour by early Tuesday, and gradual weakening is expected this afternoon and evening, followed by a faster rate of weakening tonight, according to the National Hurricane Center. Isaias is forecast to become post-tropical tonight or early Wednesday. At this time, tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 205 miles from Isaias’ center.
