Severe winds could wreck NYC’s tented coronavirus field hospitals

A nasty storm system is bringing severe high winds to the Big Apple Monday — with the potential to wreak havoc on pop-up medical facilities like the tented field hospital in Central Park treating the New York coronavirus outbreak, meteorologists said.

“The threat with the tents is with anything that is not tethered down could get blown away. It can bring down any trees within the park and it could damage tents and it could damage any people in the tents,” Accuweather meteorologist Brett Edwards told The Post Monday morning.

A 68-bed, 14-tent hospital for COVID-19 patients opened in the Manhattan green space earlier this month.

The storm, which is bringing winds up to 65 miles-per-hour and gusts as high as 70 miles-per-hour along the immediate coastline, “could be a real threat with any outdoor hospitals in the area — not just Central Park – especially any areas exposed that face the south,” Edwards said.

“With this water coming off the ocean, the winds will be strongest off the coast,” the meteorologist said.

The storm system, which violently ripped through the Deep South on Sunday, killing more than a dozen people, was expected to affect much of the East Coast.

And Edwards said the possibility of a tornado striking New York City later in the afternoon as thunderstorms are expected is not out of the question.

“The main threat will be damaging wind gusts. With this event that is the number one threat,” Edwards said, adding, “tornadoes are a low threat, but we cannot rule it out with absolute certainty.”

The meteorologist noted that a tornado outbreak unleashed destruction on southern states like Mississippi and Louisiana a day earlier, but that “the threat for tornadoes is much less than what it was in the south” for the Big Apple.

“The threat is still present, but it’s much less,” Edwards said.

By later in the afternoon Edwards warned that the Big Apple could see severe thunderstorms with “some damaging wind gusts” and “the potential for some hail.”

The city is predicted to see up to an inch of rainfall across certain areas, said Edwards, adding that there is a threat for some flooding.

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