Severe storms and at least four tornadoes ravaged New York State overnight, leaving a trail of destruction and at least one person dead, with hundreds of thousands of energy connections lost to downed power lines.
NBC affiliate WPTZ of Plattsburgh, New York, used radar imagery to confirm tornado touchdowns in Rome, 17 miles northwest of Utica, as well as two in Hamilton County and one in Warren County to the east.
Authorities confirmed that one person died in the village of Canastota, Madison County, west of Rome.
More than 110,000 were without power across New York Wednesday morning, as well as 103,000 and more 100,000 in Illinois.
Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency across the entire state on Tuesday. She said that Central New York, Mohawk Valley and the Southern Tier had been hardest hit. She spoke with both the mayor of Rome, Jeffrey Lanigan, and Oneida County Executive Anthony J. Picente Jr.
Lanigan told a news conference: “It looks like a war zone.”
More storms and heavy rain is forecast for Wednesday and a local state of emergency was in place for Canastota and Lenox until 8 a.m. Wednesday. One street in Canastota is under a mandatory evacuation order.
Images from Rome show entire roads blocked by fallen trees, sidewalks destroyed by uprooted trees, amid downed streetlights and power lines. A team from the National Weather Service office in Binghamton will inspect the area Wednesday.
Winds of almost 80 mph were strong enough in Rome to overturn vehicles, smash windshields, destroy the roof and tower of a church and move a huge B-52 bomber several feet off its platform outside the entrance of the decommissioned Griffiss Air Force Base.
The extreme weather in the internal northeast comes 24 hours after the Midwest was also hit by storms and multiple tornadoes. The National Weather Service issued 16 tornado warnings, the most in a single day since 2004.
It was confirmed Tuesday that a woman died as a result of storms in Indiana. Laura Nagel, 44, was killed in Cedar Lake, Indiana, after a tree fell on a home during the storm the Lake County Coroner’s office said.
The community of 3,000 in Nashville, Illinois, was inundated with water Tuesday when a dam was breached, placing 300 homes under evacuation orders. The National Weather Service said the area had been hit by 5 to 7 inches of rain over an eight-hour period.
The severe weather also affected Canada’s largest city, Toronto, and music star Drake posted video to Instagram showing water gushing through his house there. “This better be espresso martini,” he said of the murky brown water.
Kathryn Prociv and The Associated Press contributed.
