Wind, lightning: Sunday was a tough day to be a tree

First, heavy winds on Sunday afternoon felled branches and whole trees around Downtown, from Sixth Ave. in Chelsea to the East Village, along Sixth St. and First Ave., and also reportedly in Tompkins Square Park. Above, a cyclist skirted downed branches on First Ave. near 13th St. On E. Sixth St., across from Gandhi restaurant, a tree trunk crashed onto a parked black BMW; a crowd of nearly 30 people watched as police, armed with electric saws, dismantled the tree, the onlookers cheering when it was removed from the car’s roof around 8 p.m. On top of the win`d, later on, lightning struck a tree on the W. Houston St. median, below, slashing off half the trunk, which fell into the eastbound traffic lanes across from Arturo’s restaurant. Again, police crews used saws to cut up the tree, with the traffic lanes closed for an hour as they completed the work and removed the debris.