New York City view taken from a ferry going to Liberty Island (kennymatic/Creative Commons)

While residents received advanced notice of the storms, people were still taken by surprise, Fox News reported.

Fox: 

"It was scary. We have all glass so we kept saying, `Get away from the glass!' just in case it did come back around," Lizann Maher, who was working near the edge of Jamaica Bay when the storm hit.  

In New York City, bystanders shot video of the storm, showing a funnel “sucking up water, then sand, and then small pieces of buildings” when the first tornado came through the Rockaway peninsula in Queens, the Associated Press reported. 

In its wake, the storm toppled thousands of trees and power lines, cutting electricity to tens of thousands of people from New England to Washington D.C., NBC reported reported.

No serious injuries have been reported from the storm, however.

Read more on Neon Tommy's coverage here. 

Reach Executive Producer Jackie Mansky here.