Powerful claps of thunder, brutal winds, and what appeared to be a loosely formed tornado stripped parts of Long Island of thousands of trees yesterday. High-priced homes with fully ensured automobiles parked alongside crystal blue swimming pools fell victim to flying timber.
The storm passed slightly North of Brooklyn. Not a whisper from the clouds in the form of fait thunder or the gentle spark of far away lightning was witnessed by the millions in Kings County scorched by near 100 degree temperatures.
Brooklyn needed the rain, although wind as strong as that which blew over Long Island yesterday would have toppled shoulder-high tomato vines that some have nurtured carefully since March.
Backyard gardens thirsted for drops of real heavenly rain, not cold downpours from a plastic watering pot filled each night in a sink full of dirty dishes.
In Brooklyn, where locals talk to vegetable plants as they tend to them, the skies remained without any precipitation. On Long Island, where very few plant kitchen gardens, housewives on anti-depressants and high-blood pressure medications stood unmoved, just watching the sky out large bay windows. They ran wrinkled, white arthritic fingers through now bleach-blonde hair as the sun faded and a sense of danger loomed over all heads. The wind seemed charged with invisible electric particles. Those with front lawns perfectly manicured by illegal Mexican immigrants gasped as the winds began snapping trees and hurling lawn furniture across Nassau County.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” one citizen proclaimed on local news, forgetting a winter storm from last season that seemed to turn the sea white like the hair of most women of Long Island.
In this part of the city where the youthful reside, only the sky turned ominous. The storm seemed to gather strength from cups of espresso on tiny tables on outdoor patios of our expensive coffee shops sprawled across town like mini- Great Lakes. The storm passed over before condensation between haze and Verona occurred. Not a froth of summer rain foamed over the grinding soil of Brooklyn.
Not a single drop splattered the dry, dusty sidewalks of the hood where it seems there is sidewalk and road construction at every corner. In Manhattan, a new subway line is under construction. How dry it must seem there when it only rains on Long Island.
You Tube uploads of the storm from office workers further north in Connecticut aired on CNN moments after the storm roared loudly off to sea. Brooklyn didn’t lose Direct TV reception.
Today, what’s left of the storm is only rubbish to be removed from over- manicured, bleached front yards. Century- old trees are being cut today by roaring chainsaws held in the tiny hands of Mexicans. The ancient trees will end up in piles, to be burned perhaps, as firewood in hearths of summer homes that rarely see the cold hot spell that we have here in Brooklyn with no rain.
To the kitchen sink to fetch some morning rain for the flowers and plants that seemed to be praying for rain in my back yard yesterday.