The nor’easter slammed New York City once again.
A 1-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl were among four people injured by a falling tree in Brooklyn, authorities revealed Sunday, as a second wave of the region’s deadly weekend storm battered the city.
The rain-soaked storm sent ocean fish wriggling through driveways and hungry seagulls swooping into city streets. In Queens, a waterlogged NYPD officer described the flooding in his neighborhood as the worst since Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
“I mean, there’s horseshoe crabs all the way here up to Broad Channel Drive,” said off-duty Officer Matt Langdon, 48, as he stood in rubber boots amid the water pooled outside his Beach 84th Street home.
“I moved here to Far Rockaway when I was 10, and this is the worst it’s been since Sandy.”
“Our crawl space is flooded up to the joists,” Langdon told The Post on Sunday. “At its highest, it was coming up to my thigh. It was 2-and-a-half-feet deep at my house. My kids are stuck in the house.”
Millions of New Yorkers sheltered in place as the storm continued relentlessly pounding the region from Saturday onward with torrential rain, powerful winds and rising floodwaters.
Nearly 40,000 people across New York were without power Sunday morning, including about 19,800 in Suffolk County alone, according to PowerOutage.us.
Howard Beach, Queens, recorded a staggering 3.16 inches of rain, while most neighborhoods across the city received at least an inch since Saturday, National Weather Service data showed.
Wind gusts reached 56 mph at JFK Airport in Queens and climbed as high as 47 mph in Midtown during the storm’s two-day assault, according to the weather service.
The fierce winds brought down scores of trees across New York City, including one that killed beloved NYCHA repairman Leighton Brown, 56, on Saturday.
Four other New Yorkers, including the young boy and girl, were nearly crushed by another falling tree Saturday at Kelly Park Playground in Homecrest, Brooklyn, police said.
The tree struck the children as well as a 40-year-old woman and a 41-year-old woman when it toppled at around 5:30 p.m., according to police.
Remarkably, all four suffered only minor injuries.
The baby sustained a cut to his cheek, while the little girl suffered a broken arm. The 40-year-old woman had head and wrist injuries, and the 41-year-old woman was injured in the head, authorities said.
The close call came as authorities searched for a “missing” Long Island swimmer who was ultimately found alive and well.
The unidentified swimmer prompted alarm Saturday after witnesses saw him leap into 18-foot waves near Field 3 at the western end of Fire Island before he appeared to disappear.
After learning that authorities were searching for him off Robert Moses State Park, the man contacted officials to say he was safe, according to a joint statement from New York State Police and New York State Park Police.
“The individual was located alive and well, and no further assistance from the public is needed at this time,” the statement said.
Alongside the threats to life and property, the nor’easter produced a series of startling and surreal scenes across New York City.
Bewildered Queens mom Fadela, 40, said she woke up Sunday morning to find fish swimming in her driveway.
“Look at the little fish!” said Fadela, 40. “The fish swimming in the driveway, a whole crew of the little ones! Look! This is a first for us.”
A happy seagull also swooped down apparently to try to catch fish swimming along a flooded Far Rockaway street Sunday, video taken by The Post showed.
The seagull’s dive was unsuccessful, as the shorebird’s feet were empty as it lofted back above the water.
The fishing expedition unfolded Sunday as water inundated Beach 84th Street and Beach Channel Drive.
The flood not only brought schools of bait fish onto what’s normally dry land but also prehistoric-looking horseshoe crabs.
Garbage cans, space heaters and other human-made debris were swept up by the deluge, too.
Wicked wind in New Jersey meanwhile sent some smelly objects on the go.
Four runaway portable toilets were spotted rolling across a parking lot in Metlife Stadium, viral video showed.
“Heads up!” a man is heard yelling in the footage as the johns barreled into another man’s path outside the stadium.
The to-go bathrooms eventually came to a stop, as video posted by Vintage.NewJersey on X shows.
Flooding from the nor’easter hit coastal neighborhoods across the city starting Saturday, with Broad Channel – a sleepy waterfront neighborhood across the bridge from Far Rockaway – among the most inundated.
Locals such as Bob, 77, grew worried Sunday that the high tide would bring another round of flooding.
“Watch out for the sharks!” he joked, before turning serious. “If it’s like yesterday, it’s going to get higher.”
Maurizio Cina, a 67-year-old retiree who has lived more than 35 years in Broad Channel, spent the morning walking down Cross Bay Boulevard to survey damage to his properties.
A block away from Cina’s impromptu survey, water shot up fountain-like through sewer caps.
“With the nor’easter, the full moon and then the high tide, it’s the trifecta of floods for Broad Channel,” he said. “I haven’t seen it this bad except for [Superstorm] Sandy.”
