Trees one of storm's biggest killers

Bruce Latteri, 51, was sitting in a chair in his house at 7:15 a.m. Tuesday when Hurricane Sandy's howling wind hurled a tree through his Jefferson Township, N.J. house, killing him instantly.

"It happened so quickly, he never knew what happened," says Capt. Eric Wilsusen, spokesman for the Jefferson Township police. "The house was completely destroyed."

The storm that thrashed the East Coast from North Carolina to Connecticut has killed dozens of people _ many, like Latteri, under the weight of toppled trees. Other victims drowned as floodwaters deluged their homes or swallowed their cars. At least two people died from electrocution. Others died in car crashes on rain-slicked roads.

"Each storm has its own degree of threats," said Chris Vaccaro, spokesman for the National Weather Service. "Sandy really had it all. In many ways, Sandy is in a league of her own because it had so many wide-ranging weather threats over such a large and heavily populated area."

Hurricanes kill most often with storm surge, Vaccaro said. In 2011's Hurricane Irene, most people died in freshwater floods, he said.

In Sandy's assault, trees became its lethal weapon.

Trees caused five of the six confirmed deaths attributed to Sandy in New Jersey, said Lt. Stephen Jones, spokesman for New Jersey State Police. In Connecticut, trees killed a volunteer firefighter and an elderly woman. Two boys, 11 and 13, died in North Salem, N.Y., when a tree crashed through the living room where they sat. A West Virginia political candidate became the third person to die in that state when he was struck by a tree limb.

Lt. Russell Neary, a volunteer firefighter for the Easton, Conn., fire department was returning from a fire call at 6:45 p.m. Monday when the squad came upon a tree blocking the road, firefighter Alfred Doty said. As Neary helped move it, a tree fell on him and killed him, Doty said.

At 7:50 p.m. Monday, as Sandy kicked into full gear, Richard Everett, 54, and his wife, Elizabeth, 48, were killed when a tree fell on their pickup, Mendham Township, N.J., Police Chief Steve Crawford said. The couple and their two children were driving in a development when the tree toppled onto the front passenger seat. The two children, ages 11 and 14, escaped through a rear window, he said.

Olga Raymond, 90, died Monday evening in Mansfield, Conn., when she and two friends sought shelter at a neighbor's home, Connecticut State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance said. As the trio walked to the home, a large tree with a power line entwined in its limbs fell on them, killing Raymond and seriously inuring the others, Vance said. The power company and a tree service had to extricate Raymond, he said.

Some of the gravest danger may come after the rain and the wind has passed, says Ernest DelBuono, a retired Coast Guard commander and a senior vice president at Levick, a crisis communications firm in Washington.

People want to get out of their homes and survey the damage, DelBuono said.

"It's still an extremely dangerous time," he said. "Power lines and trees falling down are still hazards that can happen even after the hurricane has passed."

Many people die after storms of carbon monoxide poisoning from poorly ventilated generators and in car accidents, particularly where traffic lights are out, Vaccaro of the Weather Service said.

"These potentially lethal human hazards linger well after the storm has left," he said. "And many accidents are preventable."

Emergency room visits surged 35% at Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, N.J, since the storm and many of those injuries were avoidable, said Joseph Yallowitz, medical director of the hospital's emergency department.

Patients have fallen while fixing storm damage, strained their backs from lifting tree branches and crashed their cars on debis-clogged roads, he said. He said residents should wait until officials give the all-clear.

"There are a lot of loose limbs out there that are going to keep falling," Yallowitz said.

Jefferson Township declared a state of emergency and asked people to avoid leaving their homes after dark, yet "very few people heeded that warning," Wilsusen said.

"We've got trees down, power lines down. We don't want people walking around. There are definitely hazards out there," he said. "We've seen people coiling up downed lines. Even some of the power workers are saying you're crazy for doing something like that."