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Lightning strikes above the Manhattan skyline during sunset after a summer storm in New York on July 2, 2014. Reuters/Lucas Jackson

New Yorkers were treated to a spectacular light show as a summer storm rolled in over the city. Bolts of lightning illuminated the sky above Manhattan, snaking around the Empire State Building and hitting One World Trade Center.

A section of the facade inside an underpass of the Brooklyn Bridge collapsed during the thunderstorm, injuring five people. A fire department spokesman said the collapse involved a section roughly 25 feet (7.6 meters) wide. All of the injuries were minor.

Once the thunderstorm had passed, residents flocked to Brooklyn to photograph a beautiful sunset turning the sky behind the skyscrapers orange and purple.

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A bolt of lightning strikes One World Trade Center in Manhattan as the sun sets behind the city after a summer storm. Reuters
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Lightning strikes above the Manhattan skyline after a summer storm in New York. Reuters
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Joseph Rojas and Abigail Zolotarsky embrace as lightning strikes One World Trade Center in Manhattan at sunset. Reuters
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People ride the Thunderbolt roller coaster ride as a storm rolls in at Coney Island in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Reuters
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People walk along a windswept beach at Coney Island, Brooklyn. Reuters
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Workers clean up after a stone facade collapsed underneath the Brooklyn Bridge after an unusually strong summer storm in New York. Reuters
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A man stands underneath the Brooklyn Bridge to photograph a summer storm bearing down on New York. Reuters
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People line a dock in Brooklyn to watch the sun set behind the Manhattan skyline after a summer storm. Reuters

More storms are forecast as one of the year's busiest travel weekends approaches. Tropical Storm Arthur is expected to grow into a hurricane by the Fourth of July and hit most harshly at North Carolina's Outer Banks, a popular getaway spot made up of thin barrier islands along the eastern seaboard.

The first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season prompted a hurricane warning for a wide swathe of the North Carolina coast and spurred authorities to order a mandatory evacuation for visitors to the Outer Banks' Hatteras Island. Residents also were advised to leave the island. A voluntary evacuation was announced for the Outer Banks' Ocracoke Island, accessible only by ferry.

By early Thursday, the storm was about 140 miles south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina. It was moving north about 8 mph with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph. The US National Hurricane Centre predicted it would grow to a Category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of at least 74 mph some time on Thursday.