Winds up to 50 m.p.h. blew through Ithaca on Thursday, and one gust knocked a tree onto a car early in the morning, smashing its window, downing power lines and waking up college students.
The tree, near the end of South Cayuga Street, cracked around 1 a.m., abruptly waking up an Ithaca College student and crashing onto the roof and windshield of a parked Toyota Camry.
“I was sleeping like a baby and it woke me up,” Paige Agnew said as she stood on the sidewalk in front of her house with two I.C. peers.
An Ithaca police officer at the scene said he had been in touch with the owners of the vehicle. A service employee of NYSEG, the electric company, was on his way to the scene, a fireman said.
Agnew’s car, parked just feet away from the tree’s landing zone, was lightly scratched.
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs / Sun Staff Writer
The fallen tree crushed a Camry and scratched an Ithaca College student’s car.
The Camry did not fare as well. Its windshield was bashed in and the driver’s side of the sedan was crumpled.
The National Weather Service, after warning of gusty westward winds scattering unsecured items on Thursday morning, lifted its wind advisory at 1 p.m. The service had placed all of Central New York under the advisory, including Tompkins County.
Winds between 15 to 30 m.p.h. and gusts reaching 50 m.p.h. were caused by colder air entering the area but diminished in the afternoon, the service said.