Governor Cuomo holds storm briefing, notes that Southern Tier hit hardest

Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo held a briefing on the extreme winter storm and the state’s ongoing efforts. He was joined by Major General Anthony German, Adjutant General of the New York National Guard, Kevin Wisely, Director of the Office of Emergency Management, Veronique Hakim, Interim Executive Director of the MTA, Pat Foye, Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and George Beach, Superintendent of the New York State Police. More information on the state’s response to the winter storm is available here. 

A video of the briefing is available on YouTube here. 

A rush transcript is available below:

Governor Cuomo: Good morning. Thanks for joining us this morning. Let me introduce who I have with me. Although I’m sure most of them are familiar to you. To my left we have Adjutant General Anthony German, who is in charge of the New York National Guard, which as you know is very helpful and instrumental in situations like the emergency we’re now facing. Kevin Wisely, who is the Director of the Office of Emergency Management. Veronique Hakim, who is Director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. To my right, Patrick Foye, who is in charge of the Port Authority New York New Jersey and Superintendent George Beach, Superintendent of the New York State Police. We’ve been preparing for the past couple of days for the storm, the much-anticipated storm. Mother Nature is an unpredictable lady sometimes. She was unpredictable once again today. All the forecasts said the storm would hit New York City and Long Island the heaviest, although it would affect the entire state. We deployed accordingly so New York City and Long Island have been the focus of our activity again although we have resources all across the state. The way the weather pattern is actually shaping up, the storm has moved more westward. It is less of a snowstorm in New York City and Long Island. It is actually more sleet and precipitation. That is the good news. 

The warning is we have to watch the temperatures as we go through the day and the night because the precipitation could turn into ice and it could make the morning commute more difficult. It’s actually easier to move snow than it is to move ice, obviously, so we’re watching the weather. But that is basically good news from what we were expecting. It has been less snowfall than we predicted, less disruption. We have no evidence of any coastal flooding along Long Island. We have no evidence of any power outages of any significance even though we’ve had high gusts of wind. In the entire metropolitan area so that is all good news. Less good news, when the storm moved west, it increased the totals in other parts of the state. Mid-Hudson area up to the Capital District has been hit very hard. 18-20 inches. Blizzard conditions are still forecasted for the Mid-Hudson and the Capital District although the blizzard warning for New York City and Long Island has been lifted. We’re focusing on the Mid-Hudson and the Capital District. 

The most hard-hit part of the state is the Southern Tier, Binghamton, what we call the I-88 Corridor, it goes up to Albany, and Central New York. There we expect blizzard-like conditions up to 30 inches of snow. We have issued a travel ban for all of Broome County, and we are currently redeploying assets from New York City and Long Island to Central New York and the Southern Tier. We have 5,000 pieces of equipment, primarily plows that have been deployed across the state. We have about 2,000 National Guard who have been deployed all across the state and we’ll now be shifting those deployments more towards Central New York. We had previously announced a tractor trailer ban on Routes 81, 84, 88, 86, and 17 and the New York State Thruway. That will stay in effect. We announced that the Metro-North train service will be suspended at noon. Metro-North goes up into the Hudson Valley where we’re experiencing significant snowfall. The LIRR is continuing to operate, NYC buses are continuing to operate, the subway system is continuing to operate, so that’s all good news. One of the benefits that we had in this situation is that people actually heard the forecast and they heard the warnings and they stayed home. Schools were closed, businesses were closed and that actually worked. 

The lower volume allowed the first responders and the emergency crews to do their job. People are staying off the roads which is smart and which I encourage. Stay inside; view this through the window – it looks beautiful through the window. If you step outside it is not as beautiful. Trust me, I’ve been there. So the lower volume actually will allow us to do our job today so the morning commute, we’re in better shape. Also, when things are at their worst, New Yorkers are at their best. This is also the time to be a good neighbor. If you know have a senior citizen on your block, you have somebody who is homebound, who lives near you, it’s a good idea to knock on their door and say hello and make sure everything is okay. But the storm in the New York City area is not as bad as anticipated. Problem is, it is worse than anticipated in other areas of the state. Superstorm Sandy was almost the same thing – Irene the same thing, forecasted to hit New York City, it didn’t hit New York City but it devastated upstate New York. That’s the same type of situation we’re looking at now. With that I will turn it over to Veronique Hakim, who will give an update on the MTA and then we’ll hear from Pat Foye who will talk to us about the airports. 
 
Ronnie Hakim: Thank you Governor. As the Governor noted, many people have heeded his caution to stay off the roads and not travel so we are seeing significantly reduced ridership this morning – which is a good thing. We have bus service in every borough. We are not running our double articulated buses because they don’t do well in the snow and ice, which is the situation we have in the city. We are meeting all of the demand for bus service. On the subway side, again, service in every borough where we run underground subway service, and that continues. The LIRR is running a regular schedule this morning. We had the benefit of less severe weather out on Long Island but we’re monitoring that situation very closely as well. On metro north, as the governor noted, because they run north of the city and in areas of higher snow with significant wind, we will be curtailing service towards a suspension by noon. The railroads are seeing very significant low ridership. Literally, 10-15 percent of what we would normally see on a weekday. Our plans going forward is to get our service back up and running for a normal a.m. rush hour tomorrow morning. I would assure you all that we have 46,000 men and women in the various MTA agencies working hard to create a safe environment for that a.m. rush tomorrow morning. Thank you governor. 
 
Governor Cuomo: Thank you Ronnie. Pat Foye, from the Port Authority. 
 
Pat Foye: Thanks Governor. At the airports, three points – one, extensive cancellations at all of them. Ninety-nine percent of the flights at LaGuardia for instance have been canceled, significant number of cancellations at JFK. We expect that number to grow during the day. Second, check with carriers. You can rebook electronically, print boarding passes at home, if you can do that please do it. Departing passengers tomorrow and Thursday, at LaGuardia and JFK, should not go to the airport unless you’ve got a reservation. We expect heavy vehicular traffic to both LaGuardia and JFK. The George Washington Bridge and the three Staten Island bridges, speed restrictions in effect. 35 mph at the George Washington Bridge. 25 at the Staten Island bridges. Very low volume, again people heeding the directive of the Governor. PATH is operating on a normal weekday service, about 5 to 10 percent of normal weekday volume. Thanks Governor.

Question: The elevated subway, because the storm has not been as bad as you originally anticipated, do you anticipate reopening that at some point today?

Ronnie Hakim: We don’t have a timeframe set for that. We have sweeper trains running right now. And we have men and women now clearing platforms and stairs. But as you know outside right now there’s a sleet condition that we’re dealing with as well.

Question: Question on Metro-North. I know that you said the storm looks like it’s hitting hardest maybe the Hudson Valley region. Any chance that Metro-North trains will go at least to Westchester or parts of Southern Connecticut?

Ronnie Hakim: That’s confusing to our customers. I think we’re better off by telling people to get to their stations, check the website for the schedule and the train that that they need in order to get home safely.

Question: I know you touched upon no flooding reports yet in Long Island. But the national weather service is predicting moderate to major flooding on the South Shore. Is that a concern? 

Governor Cuomo: Sure, it’s always a concern. We’ve been through it a number of times. We are in much better shape for flooding post Sandy. A lot of this we’ve learned the hard way, right? We’ve had more extreme weather conditions over the past few years than almost any period in history. Hurricane Sandy taught us a lot. It especially taught us a lot about flooding. We’ve done a lot of resiliency work, we’ve raised homes, we’ve built sea walls. So we are physically better prepared for that situation. But we’re also equipped to deal with the damage that may come. We’ll keep our fingers crossed. We don’t know what the tidal sure is going to be. It’s something that Long Island deals with, right? The good news is you live on the water, you have a beautiful view. The bad news is sometimes there’s a storm and then you have to deal with it. But we have seen nothing yet. Obviously it goes with the tidal cycle, and we’ll have our fingers crossed, and we have people deployed.

Question: Is there any reason that Metro-North wasn’t canceled sooner? 

Ronnie Hakim: We were monitoring the weather as carefully as possible. There was some ambiguity in the forecast very early this morning when we need to make those decisions, in the 3, 4 am timeframe. So we were responding as quickly as possible. 

Governor Cuomo: And look, you want to keep it open as long as possible, right? You want it to operate as long you can operate it safely. Because as the other question suggested, some people need to get somewhere. And Metro-North is better than being on the roads. So keep it open as long you can, but don’t put people in danger. And then give people notice so they can change their plans. And that’s the noon closing. Okay. Thank you very much.