Nightly News   |  September 09, 2012

Cleanup after tornadoes rip through New York

Cleanup crews followed the paths of violent storms that moved through the East Coast and that even spawned two tornadoes in New York City. NBC’s Michelle Franzen reports.

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>>> weather that struck the eastern seaboard this weekend including tornadoes here in new york city . we have a report from michelle franzen .

>> reporter: up and down the east coast cleanup today after a series of violent storms .

>> look at the tornado.

>> reporter: that even spawned a pair of tornadoes in two new york city neighborhoods. the first twister formed over the atlantic before moving on to land ripping through a sea side community on the edge of queens. ten miles away a more powerful tornado tore through a densely populated brooklyn neighborhood damaging several homes and downing trees.

>> my son was looking at it out the window. he was like we are gelting hit by a tornado.

>> reporter: homeowners are still assessing the damage in this neighbor but feel lucky that no one was injured.

>> we have been fortunate nothing happened.

>> reporter: the threatening skies caused delays at sporting events . in new jersey rutgers football fans ran for cover. washington was hit hard with winds of nearly 60 miles per hour. in virginia and maryland the storms toppled trees and left 150,000 customers without power. and on the potomac river 19 people were rescued after the racing boat they were on capsized. what powered these storms?

>> we saw a shift in the weather pattern with cooler air dropping down and that produced 300 wind reports all across the northeast and then we got the tornadoes in new york city on top of that.

>> reporter: volatile storms that are not uncommon this time of year but this weekend they packed an extra punch. michelle franzen , nbc news, new york.