Lightning Hits One World Trade Center as Summer Storm Rolls in Over New York City
New Yorkers were treated to a spectacular light show as a summer storm rolled in over the city. Bolts of lightning illuminated the sky above Manhattan, snaking around the Empire State Building and hitting One World Trade Center.
A section of the facade inside an underpass of the Brooklyn Bridge collapsed during the thunderstorm, injuring five people. A fire department spokesman said the collapse involved a section roughly 25 feet (7.6 metres) wide. All of the injuries were minor.
Once the thunderstorm had passed, residents flocked to Brooklyn to photograph a beautiful sunset turning the sky behind the skyscrapers orange and purple.
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Further storms are forecast as one of the year's busiest travel weekends approaches. Tropical Storm Arthur is expected to grow into a hurricane by the Fourth of July and hit most harshly at North Carolina's Outer Banks, a popular getaway spot of thin barrier islands along the shore.
The first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season prompted a hurricane warning for a wide swathe of the North Carolina coast and spurred authorities to order a mandatory evacuation for visitors to the Outer Banks' Hatteras Island. Residents also were advised to leave the island. A voluntary evacuation was announced for the Outer Banks' Ocracoke Island, accessible only by ferry.
By early Thursday, the storm was about 140 miles (230 kilometres) south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina. It was moving north about 8 mph (13 kph) with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph (110 kph). The US National Hurricane Centre predicted it would grow to a Category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of at least 74 mph some time on Thursday.
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