Multiple tornadoes swirled through New Jersey, ripping apart and flattening homes as the remnants of Hurricane Ida pummeled the tri-state area with furious downpours on Wednesday.
As images of flattened and dissected homes in South Jersey circulated on social media, the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for the Big Apple and lower Westchester County up to the city of New Rochelle.
“Take shelter now in a basement or interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building,” the warning read. “If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter.”
The alert was lifted before 10 p.m. Wednesday, but a lesser alert of Tornado Watch remained in effect regionwide through 1 a.m. on Thursday, according to the NWS.
The alert included all five boroughs, Long Island, Westchester and Rockland as well as Fairfield County, Connecticut and the northern New Jersey counties of Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Passaic and Union. Flash flooding warnings were in effect through much of the region.
Flash flooding warnings were in effect through much of the region.
A handful of homes in residential Mullica Hill were flattened and the wind took roofs and chunks of siding off other homes, videos of the damage on social media show.
At least nine homes were destroyed in the community, NBC Philadelphia reported.
Other social media videos show an ominous, fast moving cyclone viewed from a backyard in Mullica Hill as trees sway violently in the distance.
“We got a major tornado coming this way,” the video shooter says.
“Holy crap,” he adds before calling out to someone “this is definitely a tornado.”
All of the southern part of New Jersey remains under a tornado watch.
The Garden State and broader was slammed with at least three tornadoes, in Burlington County, Camden County and elsewhere.
Much of the area into Pennsylvania has pummeled by Ida, prompting tornado warnings and with downpours that led to evacuations across the region.
One teenager was dead and two people unaccounted for from an apparent tornado near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, The Associated Press reported.
With over 5 inches of rain by midafternoon on Wednesday, official ordered the evacuation of communities downstream from the Wilmore dam as water overwhelmed the area.
Flash floods pummeled roughly 20 homes and washed away trailers in western Virginia, where dozens had to be evacuated, according to the AP.
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