By Joe Anuta
The superstorm that slammed into Queens Monday night left at least 10 dead in New York City and about 80 homes in Breezy Point smoldering after a record storm surge inundated neighborhood streets and wind gusts downed trees, leaving about 100,000 Queens residents without power Tuesday morning.
In Breezy Point in the Rockaways, between 80 and 100 flooded homes caught fire and were destroyed, according to an Associated Press report, and 200 of the City’s Bravest had to rescue about 25 people by boat.
As of 11:15 a.m. Tuesday, 10 New Yorkers had died as a result of the storm, which started out as Hurricane Sandy, but then went through several different classifications including tropical storm and post-tropical storm as it combined with a cold front, according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Three of the people killed were from Queens, according to the New York Post.
About 7 p.m., a tree fell onto a house in Flushing near the corner of 166th Street and Pidgeon Road, killing a 29-year-old man named Tony Laino, according to the NYPD.
A woman was killed in South Richmond Hill near 105th Avenue when she stepped into a puddle and was electrocuted, the Post reported.
In Howard Beach, a woman was killed when she could not escape the flooded first floor of her house, according to the Post.
Queens remained cut off from other parts of the city Tuesday morning, since officials closed down all of the bridges leading off of the island as winds and the churling tidal waters rose.
Late Monday night, water began rushing into the Queens Midtown Tunnel, the last connection between Queens, Brooklyn and Long Island and the rest of the city.
As of 11 a.m., Queens elected officials were having trouble getting through to 311 with downed phone lines and flooding affecting even portions of the borough inland. Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joseph Lhota said the the 108-year-old subway system “has never faced a disaster as devastating as what we experienced last night,” according to AP, and according to the mayor subways could be out for as long as four to five days.
