(News Briefs March 30, 2006)
Bridge Repairs
Deputy New York City Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Mike Principe, who announced his imminent retirement in recent weeks, has sent a letter to the town noting that the city will begin repairs on several of its roads and bridges, as long requested. And although the DEP states that regular inspections since 2004 have shown all its spans to be in safe order, it has started to prioritize repairs, starting with the the bridges over the Dividing Weir crossing the Ashokan Reservoir and including the span that crosses the CMRR tracks leading to the Dividing Weir.
Principe explained in his letter that the repair delays, and long hiatus before a 500 plus signature petition from local residents was answered, were necessitated by the city’s need to go through the same environmental reviews and other administrative hurdles as all municipal entities.
Actual dates for repairs have yet to be made, and will hopefully take into account the long detours necessary with any closures of the Dividing Weir, as occured for security reasons following the 9/11 tragedy.

County Cuttings
The Ulster County Legislature exed out three jobs from two departments recently, giving the county a net savings of $53,000, with more expected through a new management program that added a pair of paralegal positions to oversee future government contracts. It’s all part of the new Democratic majority’s struggle to deal with a $300.25 million budget, voted in by their Republican predecessors, that led the state with a 39 percent increase in the tax levy and which will, they were recently told, force a budget deficit of $1.15 million if spending or revenue adjustments aren’t made.
The legislature has since requested a five percent cut from all departments and cut funding for 16 nonprofit agencies by nearly 60 percent and eliminated aid altogether for another 17 agencies.
The only restoration they made, after considerable lobbying, was $30,000 in contingent match funds to the Ulster County School-to-Work Partnership, which had seen its $60,000 allocation eliminated.
Also eliminated by the Legislature was $3,000 for the Shandaken Theatrical Society; $2,000 for the Trolley Museum of New York; and $500 each for Woodstock Guild of Craftsmen, Catskill Ballet Theatre Co., Historical Society of Woodstock, the Kingston Rep Co., the Truth Project, D&H Canal Historical Society, Unison Art & Learning Center, Friends of Historic Kingston, Historical Society of Shawangunk & Gardiner, Ulster Ballet Guild, and Huguenot Historical Society of New Paltz. With the School-to-Work program, the cuts total $70,500.
Agencies that maintained some funding were: Ulster County Library Association, $100,000, a 50 percent reduction; Ulster Performing Arts Center, $2,500, a decrease of $9,500, or 79.17 percent; Ulster County Community Action, $15,000, a decrease of $5,000, or 25 percent; Hudson River Maritime Museum, $1,000, a decrease of $5,000, or 83.33 percent; Federated Sportsmen’s Clubs of Ulster County, $2,500, a decrease of $4,500, or 64.29 percent; Mohonk Preserve, $1,000, a decrease of $3,500, or 77.78 percent; Resource Center for Accessible Living, $2,000, a decrease of $3,000, or 60 percent; Retired Senior Volunteer Program, $7,500, a reduction of $2,500, or 25 percent; Court Appointed Special Advocates, $18,000, a reduction of $2,000, or 10 percent; Shadowland Theatre, $1,500, a decrease of 50 percent; Ulster Literacy Association, $1,000, a decrease of 50 percent; Ulster County Arts Council and Ulster Arts Alliance, $500, a 50 percent reduction; Woodstock Film Festival, $250, a 50 percent reduction; Center for Photography at Woodstock, Ulster County Historical Society, and Women’s Studio Workshop, $250 each, a 50 percent reduction. County officials did not include on the cut list a $3,000 funding item for the Ulster County Agricultural Society, which represents a 50 percent cut. Officials said negotiations are ongoing with the agency, which organizes the Ulster County Fair.
Ulster County lawmakers have approved funding the county half of $6.21 million in upgrades at Ulster County Community College under the first phase of a six-year plan that will see some non-emergency improvements delayed to 2007. A longer schedule was set in an effort to keep in step with budget deficit reduction steps being taken by other departments.

Trash Fee Hike?
Because of increasing monthly losses tied to riusing fuel and outside hauling and disposal costs, the town is currently eying rises in the fees for the town’s transfer station. Exacerbated by dropping subsidy shares from the county and rising Resource Recovery Agency costs to participating transfer stations, the town is looking into a cost basis for recycling. Fees have already gone up from $2 to $2.50 per bag of household garbage in the past year, as well as for commercial haulers, who have compensated by raising their own rates for homeowners.
Expect further discussion of these matters at the town’s next workshop and board meetings in Shokan this coming week.

The Jail (Again)...
The primary contractor on the Ulster County Law Enforcement Center project, David Christa Construction, has submitted a bill that is nearly $8 million more than county officials anticipated, potentially pushing the overall cost of the project above $92 million. Legislators have said they will fully investigate the claim before paying… a new practice unlike that seen in the past, when the project started its slip into two years and $12 million beyond expectations, before the latest charges.
The county has said the county balance owed to David Christa Construction is $1.45 million.
Meanwhile, Sheriff J. Richard Bockelmann has said he needs eight new hires and three months of staff training before he can show state officials the county’s nearly completed Law Enforcement Center is ready to operate properly with his department meeting state Commission of Correction standards. The Republican official has also come under fire of late for the lavishness of his new offices.
Bovis Lend Lease, one of the nation’s top contracting firms, was let go by the legislature earlier this year after having been paid $3.5 million since being hired in 2000. Legal actions are currently expected.
State Commission of Correction officials have provided Ulster County legislators with a list of problems that need to be addressed before the county’s new jail is allowed to house inmates, including texture problems on kitchen flooring, the need for outdoor exercise screens, various equipment needs, and the employment problems referenced by the sheriff.
Lawyers for Christa Construction, it later turned out, have agreed to negotiate their payment request if the legislature holds off placement of blame for problems to date… at least for now.
Many lawsuits and investigations involving the project are currently expected.

Charter Time!
At the Tuesday, March 7, Olive town board meeting, Ulster County Charter Commission member Marianne Collins presented the commission’s recommendations for renovation of the county government. Reading from a four-and-a-half-page summary, Collins offered few embellishments and concluded by offering to answer questions. When none came, she cited the most commonly asked question, whether the changes would cost taxpayers more money, and answered, in summary, “No.”
After fifteen months of work, the charter commission has issued its endorsements and is now presenting them to town boards and interested members of the public. Among the recommendations are the reduction in size of the legislature from 33 to 23 legislators, as already approved by public referendum. The commission endorsed single-member districting, plurality winner, and partisan election. Suggestions for governing redistricting every ten years, following census-taking, include establishment of an independent, nonpartisan, seven-member commission on reapportionment.
The charter commission unanimously voted to endorse election of a county executive with a four-year term of office and no limit on the number of terms a person may serve. Although hiring of a non-elected executive was considered, Collins said the decision was based on testimony from citizens and government officials, who stated that “in every single case, elected executives are more effective at interacting with other layers of government, and they have clear accountability.”
Other recommendations include listing of separate powers and duties for the legislative and executive branches of county government, as well as definition of roles of certain boards, department heads, committees, and the Ulster County Development Corporation.
Regarding the cost of the revised structure, Collins pointed out that the current county tax increase of 39.1 percent is twelve times higher than the mean increase statewide of 3.3 percent. Per capita spending in charter counties is currently only slightly higher than in non-charter counties, $124 per capita as opposed to $119 per capita, while Ulster’s rate exceeds both of these figures. “We reviewed a great deal of data,” said Collins, “and there is no empirical evidence to imply that our costs will increase.”
To view the charter, visit www.ulstercountyny.gov/charter.html.

Plan D Deadline
Seniors need another six months to sign up for the Medicare prescription drug benefit, Congressional Democrats, including our own Maurice Hinchey, have started saying in light of the upcoming May 15 cutoff deadline for the Medicare Plan D Prescription Drug benefit that President Bushg has steadfastly refused to consider extenbding. They are saying that people eligible for the prescription benefit are confused by the various offerings, and some are even paying more for medicine now than they were before they joined the program. A re-think of the entire program is necessary.
Those who sign up for the new program after May 15 will have to pay higher premiums, according to the plan up and running since January..
Seniors complain they’re confused by the myriad of private options offered in the prescription drug program. Many poor people ran into problems when they were switched over from their drug benefits within Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, to the Medicare drug benefit. And many pharmacists are struggling because they haven’t been paid for drugs administered by the program.
Hinchey is introducing a pair of bills to ameliorate some of the immediate problems faced by senior citizens enrolled in the Medicare Part D drug plan. The Congressman has co-sponsored the proposed Medicare Emergency Drug Intervention Compensation Act that would guarantee that states would be reimbursed for their outlays for the program.
Hinchey has also co-sponsored The Medicare Informed Choice Act that would allow seniors to sign up for Medicare Part D without paying a late fee. The bill would also allow beneficiaries to make a one-time change in enrollment if they are dissatisfied with the plan they have selected.
The fundamental problem with the Medicare Part D program, said Hinchey, is the fact that it was designed as a benefit for insurance and drug companies. The law was passed without the usual public hearings, testimony by experts and extensive debate, he asserted. Rather, said Hinchey, it was essentially drafted by the pharmaceutical industry, with the better part of the approximately $1.2 trillion estimated cost of the program over the next 10 years going mainly to big pharma.
The plan passed narrowly after an unusual three-hour delay during voting. During that time, reluctant Republican representatives “were bribed and threatened to make them vote for it,” Hinchey asserted.
The long-term solution, said Hinchey, is to scrap this privatized plan and allow seniors to register for a plan administered by the federal Medicare program. This should offer a low annual payment, low co-payments and should cover all drugs. The congressman has cosponsored the Medicare Prescription Drug Savings Act, which would allow every senior citizen to choose a Medicare-sponsored plan with a monthly premium of $35, low out-of-pocket expenses and no gap in coverage. The bill also requires CMS to negotiate with the companies for discounts.
Hinchey was not hopeful that any of these bills would be passed. Until a different Congress is elected, the law will remain on the books as is.

Rabies Clinic!
The Veterinary Technology Club at Ulster County Community College will hold a rabies clinic and wellness fair for dogs and cats on the college’s Stone Ridge campus on Sunday, April 9, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Rabies shots will be provided at a cost of $5 per animal. Animals must be restrained by a leash or carrier. In the event of rain, the clinic will be held April 23. Advance registration is not required. For information phone (845) 687-5233.

Flood Controls?
New York City Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff announced plans recently to include flood prevention measures in the reconstruction of the Gilboa Dam in Schoharie County, adding that he hoped the measure would send a message to upstate communities that the city is “trying to do better.”
“New York City is committed to providing that relief to the residents downstream,” he said. “On behalf of myself and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, I would like to thank them for their patience and understanding during this difficult time.”
The reservoir spill control program at Gilboa will be modeled after measures already in place at two other city-owned reservoirs in the region, the Pepacton and the Neversink. During the winter at those two reservoirs, the city maintains voids in the reservoirs equal to one-half of the melted snow pack surrounding each reservoir. Absent any significant snow pack, the Department of Environmental Protection maintains the voids at a level equal to the amount of water that would run off into each reservoir from a one-inch rainfall occurring over a six-hour period.
Since problems were identified at Gilboa, the city has been reducing water levels in the Schoharie Reservoir via the Shandaken Tunnel, which empties into the Esopus Creek in the Shandaken hamlet of Allaben. The release has raised concerns among residents in the Esopus Creek corridors above and below the Ashokan Reservoir that there could be a repeat of last year’s devastating floods this spring.
The opening of old flood channels through the Ashokan Field Campus in Olive have helped alleviate fears from residents downstream of that reservoir, but more specific actions regarding Ashokan Reservoir and Esopus Creek flood control measures have yet to be made.
Stay tuned.

Wetlands Study…
On an ongoing basis over approximately the last two years, NRDC (Brad Sewell), Sierra Club (John Stouffer), Riverkeeper (Leila Goldmark), NY Trout Unlimited (Ron Urban) and other conservation organizations have compiled and reviewed wetlands jurisdictional determinations made by the New York and Buffalo district offices of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which are the two Corps district offices covering New York State. To date, they have reviewed files for over 330 sites at which the Corps determined it had “no jurisdiction” to protect the site’s wetlands. The determinations were made during the period 2001-2005.
The purpose of the coalition’s study is to assess the continuing extent to which wetlands in New York State that are clearly under a development threat (as indicated by the owner’s interest in seeking the jurisdictional determination) are not being provided federal protection because they are considered “isolated” wetlands. Such wetlands would thus be solely reliant on New York State’s and/or local regulatory programs for protection.

County Builders?
A New York State Local Government Records Improvement Fund grant initiative has been awarded to the County Clerk’s Office to develop a teaching aid package utilizing Immigration and Naturalization Records. The Ulster County Clerk’s Office, Mid-Hudson Teacher Center and the New York State Archives is hosting a workshop entitled “The Builders of Ulster County” to introduce a new curriculum developed using these local records to teach immigration in grades 4 – 8, to be held on Tuesday, May 9 from 4:30 to 8 p.m. in Room 1907 of the Old Main Building on the SUNY New Paltz campus.
Using local records from repositories in Ulster County, including the County Clerk’s Office, the Senate House State Historic Site, the Haviland-Heidgerd Historical Collection and Library, and the D & H Canal Museum, Susan Stessin-Cohn has created a curriculum for classroom teachers through a grant from the New York State Archives. The curriculum addresses the need to study immigration, while developing ELA and mathematical skills in real context. It was developed with the New York State Social Studies tests in mind. The focus on local immigration and the stories of people in places with familiar names like Kingston and Gardiner will get the students’ interest. Experiencing this curriculum enhances students’ higher-level reasoning skills with activities that require analysis, interpretation and evaluation.
To register for “The Builders of Ulster County: A Workshop Using Local Records to Teach Immigration in Grades 4-8” (Course #1-0506101), visit the Mid-Hudson Teacher Center website at www.mhtc.dcboces.org and click on the link for “On-line Registration”. If you are in a school district that is a member of My Learning Plan, please go to your district’s website and click on Mid-Hudson Teacher Center to access offerings and follow your district’s approval policy. The registration deadline is April 28, 2006.
For any additional information, please call (845) 340-3040.

HEAP Help
Federal aid to help the poor cope with energy costs will increase by $1 billion to more than $3 billion this year, despite the opposition of congressmen and senators from warm states. The $1 billion, on top of $2.1 billion already allotted for the current budget year, was obtained by transferring money originally intended for the budget year that begins Oct. 1. Under a compromise worked out in the Senate, half of the new money would be distributed according to an existing formula that would favor warm weather states while the other half would be spent at the discretion of the president.

Anti-Pollution
A federal appeals court has overturned a clean-air regulation issued by the Bush administration that would have let many power plants, refineries and factories avoid installing costly new pollution controls to help offset any increased emissions caused by repairs and replacements of equipment. Ruling in favor of a coalition of states and environmental advocacy groups, including New York, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the “plain language” of the law required a stricter approach. The court has primary jurisdiction in challenges to federal regulations.
The ruling by a three-judge panel was the court’s second decision in less than a year in a pair of closely related cases involving the administration’s interpretations of a complex section of the Clean Air Act. Unlike its ruling last summer, when the court largely upheld the E.P.A.’s approach against challenges from industry, state governments and environmental groups, the new ruling was a defeat for the agency and for industry, and a victory for the states and their environmentalist allies.
With a wry footnote to Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass,” the court said that “only in a Humpty-Dumpty world” could the law be read otherwise.
The provision of the law at issue, the “new source review” section, governs the permits required at more than 1,300 coal-fueled power plants around the country and 17,000 factories, refineries and chemical plants that spew millions of tons of pollution into the air each year.

Wal Mart Bank
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which has been subjected to months of criticism from community bankers and unions for its plan to open a specialized bank, is gaining some powerful allies: some of the nation’s biggest companies. The Bentonville, Ark., retailer is the target of intense lobbying to scuttle its application to operate an industrial-loan company, or ILC. ILCs allow retailers, auto makers and others to offer consumer loans and other banking services directly to their customers, as well as perform transactional business for their own accounts.
Banks, worried about looming competition from a retailer known for its aggressive pricing, have put Wal-Mart on the defensive by arguing that mixing banking and commerce could pose risks to the financial system because industrial banks are regulated less stringently than commercial banks.
But a number of the most-recognized companies disagree, swarming Capitol Hill to convince lawmakers to protect the use of this kind of state-chartered bank. The American Financial Services Association, a trade group representing companies such as General Motors Corp., General Electric Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and others that operate ILCs, plan to testify in hearings next month on whether Wal-Mart should get federal deposit insurance if state banking regulators allow the retailer to proceed with its plans. Several major Wall Street firms, which own ILCs, also are lobbying behind the scenes to protect industrial banks, worried that the anti-Wal-Mart movement will endanger their business operations.
Jane Thompson, president of Wal-Mart Financial Services, said critics are relying on misinformation to undermine its applications for a charter in Utah and FDIC insurance. She said Wal-Mart’s bank would help cut $5 million to $10 million a year from its stores’ various processing costs for credit-card, debit-card and electronic-check transactions.
Ms. Thompson said the retailer’s application explicitly says Wal-Mart won’t open branches. “We’re committed not to [open branches]. Period,” she said.
Meanwhile, a group of New York state legislators wants Wal-Mart and other retailers to pay more for employees’ health care so taxpayers won’t have to.For the third time in two months, a bill was announced that would go after large employers whose workers wind up on Medicaid or other state-sponsored health care programs. Sponsors say retailers are encouraging low-wage employees to seek out Medicaid. The result: Taxpayers are footing the health bills of full-time workers because their employers are not, they said. The bill, if approved, could affect as many as 450,000 workers in New York, backers said.

Preservational
The State Assembly for passing legislation that will give New York towns a powerful new tool to preserve “community character.” Known as the Community Preservation Act, the law gives municipalities the power to voluntarily create a fund dedicated to protecting natural areas and water resources, working farms, and historic buildings. The Community Preservation Act benefits New Yorkers by removing the obstacle of seeking legislative approval to fund local efforts.
The Community Preservation Act now moves to the Senate where it is sponsored by Senator Carl Marcellino and has more than enough votes to pass; thirty-two Senators have already requested to cosponsor the bill. Introduced in the Assembly in 2004, the bill enjoys bi-partisan support and majority sponsorship in both houses. Governor Pataki has also announced his support for the policy, which is echoed by a growing coalition of more than 50 conservation, farm, historic preservation, and municipal organizations, including the New York Farm Bureau and the New York Association of Towns.
For more information on the Community Preservation Act, visit: http://www.savenys.org.

Foreign-Owned?
The furor over efforts by an Arab company to buy U.S. port operations has focused attention on a little noticed economic fact of life: America increasingly is foreign-owned. From the ritzy Essex House hotel in Manhattan, owned by the Dubai Investment Group, to the nationwide chains of Caribou Coffee and Church’s Chicken, owned by another company serving Arab investors, foreigners are buying bigger and bigger chunks of the country.
The U.S. must borrow more than $2 billion per day from foreigners to finance its huge trade deficits. In 2005, for example, there was a record deficit of $805 billion in the current account, the broadest measure of trade.
Foreigners already own half of the U.S. government’s publicly traded debt. As of January, some $2.19 trillion in Treasury securities were in the hands of central banks, including China and Japan, and private investors abroad.
At the end of 2004, the total foreign direct investment in this country — actual factories, office buildings and other tangible assets as opposed to stocks and bonds — came to $1.53 trillion, 8.2 percent more than in 2003.

Pesticide Kids
Preliminary results of a study of North Dakota farm children exposed to pesticides show they performed significantly lower than their peers on IQ tests, though their scores still are within a range considered normal. The study two groups of children in the northern Red River Valley, one group living on or near an active farm or field, another living at least a mile away. Children living on or near farms tested an average of five points lower on standard IQ tests. The study, funded by a branch of the National Institutes of Health, will go on to determine whether there is a correlation between the level of exposure to pesticides and performance on memory, intelligence and other mental functions.
The researchers found the average intelligence score for the farm children was 98 - still within the range of 85 to 115 that is considered normal but was well below the average IQ score of 103 for the group with lower chronic exposures to pesticides. Children living on farms also had lower scores in verbal comprehension, visual perceptual reasoning, memory and mental processing speed, the study found.
The study is an offshoot of a large epidemiological study that UND researchers are conducting on chronic pesticide exposure and degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Tax Info Sales
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns. If it succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers, for the first time, will be able to sell information from individual returns — or even entire returns — to marketers and data brokers. The possible change is raising alarm among consumer and privacy-rights advocates. It was included in a set of proposed rules that the Treasury Department and the IRS published in the Dec. 8 Federal Register, where the official notice labeled them “not a significant regulatory action.”
IRS officials portray the proposed changes as house-cleaning measures needed to update outmoded regulations that were adopted before the IRS began accepting returns electronically. The proposed rules, which would become effective 30 days after a final version is published, would require a tax preparer to obtain written consent before selling tax information.
Critics call the proposed changes a dangerous new breach in personal and financial privacy. They say the requirement for signed consent would prove meaningless for many taxpayers, especially those hurriedly reviewing stacks of documents before a filing deadline.
Meanwhile, a variety of companies are trying to get their hands on your tax refund before you do, and state law-enforcement officials are cracking down on some of the practices. As the April tax-filing deadline approaches, businesses from tax-preparation firms to auto dealerships are offering consumers the opportunity to put their expected refund checks to work weeks before the IRS sends them out — often by loaning them the expected amount for a high fee. Dozens of retailers, including Olive Garden restaurants and AMC move theaters, have begun offering gift cards in exchange for tax refunds to people who file using TurboTax, the popular tax-preparation software. H&R Block Inc. recently launched savings accounts for customers to channel their tax refunds. And hundreds of car dealerships will prepare your taxes if your refund is applied toward a down payment on a car.
But state officials are clamping down on some of these programs, claiming they saddle low and moderate-income families, recent college graduates and others with high fees. Last year about three of every four tax filers received a refund, according to the Internal Revenue Service. Those refunds totaled nearly $218 billion, or about $2,171 per household.

Last week, H&R Block, the nation’s biggest tax preparation firm, was sued by New York’s attorney general for selling so-called Express IRAs that allegedly earned less money than what customers paid in fees. That action followed a lawsuit last month against Block by California’s attorney general, who accused the firm of charging fees that equate to annualized interest rates that can exceed 500% on so-called refund-anticipation loans, the popular instant refunds, which are loans that clients repay when their refunds arrive.
Block said at the time that the California suit has “no legal or factual merit,” and said it clearly discloses the terms of its loans to consumers. The company also has denied the charges in the New York lawsuit, saying its IRA program offers its customers “a powerful first step toward ensuring a secure financial future.”

Big Army Plans
The U.S. military has developed a ten-year plan for “deep storage” of munitions and equipment in at least six countries in the Middle East and Central Asia to prepare for regional war contingencies. The plans, revealed this month contracting documents, call for the continued storage of everything from packaged meals ready to eat (MREs) to missiles in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman, as well as the establishment of two new storage hubs, one in a classified Middle Eastern country “west” of Saudi Arabia (“Site 23”) and the other in a yet to be decided “central Asian state.”
Though President Bush yhas expressed the view that U.S. forces would stay in Iraq past 2008, the plans to continue to “pre-position” war material in the Persian Gulf region leave ambiguous whether the U.S. military foresees the ability to establish a permanent present in Iraq in the long-term. By 2016, the contracting documents show that the tonnage of air munitions stored at sites outside Iraq will double from current levels.

Large Parcel...
Prior to Tuesday night’s meeting of the CWC, Olive supervisor Berndt Leifeld was anticipating the introduction of a resolution which would approve CWC president Alan Rosa’s sending of notice to the Ulster County and Sullivan County legislatures that if they intended to adopt the large parcel law option this year, they’d better be prepared to also pay a share of the legal fees expended in fighting New York City’s continual efforts to lower tax appraisals on its upstate watershed holdings.
Since the CWC funds are designated for watershed towns and only watershed towns, Leifeld reasons, then non-watershed towns who benefit from the City’s payments by taking a cut of the City’s watershed taxes should be obliged to contribute to the legal defense fund against those lawsuits seeking to diminish such payments.
Leifeld also said that the Nextel Corporation is expected to present a bid to colocate their transmitters and receivers on the cellphone tower which the Masterpage Corporation to errect at the peak of South Mountain in West Shokan this Spring at the town board meeting on Tuesday, April 4th.

Hurricane!
New England, as well as downstate New York, could be in for a big one. Meteorologists say conditions — including warmer temperatures in the Atlantic Basin and cooler temperatures in the Pacific Ocean — are ripe for the Northeast coast to be hit by a whopper of a hurricane this season.
Ken Reeves, a senior meteorologist at the AccuWeather Center in State College, Pa., said that when the Pacific is cooler, it "essentially drives the storm track further to the east in the Atlantic Ocean basin." He predicts the East Coast north of the Mid-Atlantic states could see a Category 3 hurricane, a storm that could resemble the devastating systems that hit New England between the 1930s and 1950s.
Batten down those hatches!