© Peter Carr/The Journal NewsCars are stranded on Mill Creek Road in New City after Friday's heavy rain.
The thunder could be heard and the lightening seen as early as 2:30 p.m. in some areas, but the brunt of the storm didn't move across the county until about 4 p.m.
Heavy rains caused flash floods in some places, and heavy winds downed trees in others. That left some county roads impassable.
Friday evening, hours after the rains eased and the flood waters receded, Melvin and Marilyn Israel stood at the entrance to their Mill Creek Road home in New City, listening as workers pounded nails into their roof to secure a tarp.
Beneath the tarp, a gash had been left by a massive tree that had fallen.
Standing at the doorway to the pitch-black house - the utilities had long since been turned off - Melvin Israel said he and his wife were entertaining friends about 4:30 p.m. when the heavy rains turned to hail and combined with winds the likes of which he had never seen in his 30 years in the hamlet.
"We looked out on the deck and the next thing we see is that the deck furniture is blowing all over the place like paper," Melvin Israel said. "We walked out of the room, and within five seconds, we heard a huge explosion.
"We turned around and we saw that the ceiling had collapsed at one side of the room, and there was debris everyplace. It was just all over that room."
No one was injured by the tree, but the Israels were forced from their home, opting to spend the night in a nearby motel. They planned to fully assess the damage today.
In Suffern, a two-car crash just before the downpour made the village roadways look more like a parking lot.
Suffern police Detective Craig Long said that just after 4 p.m., a car heading southbound on Orange Avenue crossed the double yellow lines and struck a school bus carrying children from a day camp.
The driver of the car and three children from the bus were taken to Good Samaritan Hospital with minor injuries, Long said, but the crash forced authorities to close Orange Avenue in the area near the Suffern train yards for about an hour.
While the crash was being cleaned up, the downpour began, flooding out parts of Orange Avenue, Long said.
As the storm raged, two cars became stuck beneath the Chestnut Street overpass, Long said, adding that the water rose so quickly the drivers had no other option but to evacuate their cars. The water eventually reached the roofs of both vehicles.
Not long after, a traffic light on Lafayette Avenue went out, backing up traffic even farther.
Long said it took responders from the Suffern Fire Department; the Suffern, Ramapo and Mahwah, N.J., police departments; the Ramapo Valley and Sloatsburg ambulance corps; and Rockland Paramedic Services before the car crashes and traffic could be controlled. Even then, Long said, traffic was backed up into neighboring Mahwah for about a mile.
While New City, particularly the northern section, and Suffern appeared to have been hit hardest by the weather, other areas, like West Nyack and Stony Point, received little more than moderate to heavy rain.
John Dlugoenski, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, said that most areas received about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of rain but that the places hit by torrential downpours likely saw about 1 to 2 inches.
"Mainly it was beneficial rain. It's always good when you can get some rain this time of year," Dlugoenski said. "But when you get 1 to 2 inches of rain in 20 minutes, that's going to cause flooding."
Elsewhere in New City, a tree fell across Route 304, causing that road to be closed in both directions between Goebel Road and Squadron Boulevard for about an hour.
Delays were also reported on the Palisades Interstate Parkway and the New York State Thruway, where flooding was reported between exits 15 and 16.
Mike Donovan, a spokesman for Orange and Rockland Utilities Inc., said a downed tree near Goebel Road also took down power lines about 4 p.m., knocking out power to more than 1,300 homes.
About 7 p.m., lightning struck an O&R substation in Sparkill, knocking out power to an additional 2,387 customers.
Smaller outages scattered about the county left about 4,000 customers affected in total. Most had their power back within minutes or hours.
Dlugoenski said that despite the weather Friday, the weekend as a whole ought to be pleasant, with temperatures hovering in the 80s.
"I guess the good news to all of this is that it looks like a really nice weekend," he said. "It's going to be a great weekend to get out and do whatever summertime activity you like to do."
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