A powerful nor’easter sweeping across the East Coast resulted in a heartbreaking incident in Brooklyn, where a large solar panel was torn from a parking structure by intense gusts of wind and struck a 76-year-old woman, fatally injuring her. The storm’s winds were strong enough to rip the panel—measuring over seven feet by three feet—from its rooftop mount above a parking lot near Ocean Parkway. The panel flew roughly twenty feet before colliding with Lyudmila Braun, who was walking along the sidewalk. Emergency responders rushed her to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, but she was pronounced dead upon arrival.
City officials classified the event as a freak accident, and an investigation by the Department of Buildings is underway to determine whether any violations or negligence contributed to the tragedy. As a safety measure, part of the parking lot beneath the panel structure was evacuated, and one entrance to the nearby Ocean Parkway Q train station was closed. The solar panels had been installed recently by Best Energy Power, according to the Department of Buildings.
A wind advisory was in effect across the city when the incident occurred, as the nor’easter battered New York with strong winds, heavy rain, and flooding. The tragic event serves as a somber reminder of nature’s unpredictability—and how even the structures we consider stable are not immune to its power.
