UPDATE: The County has extended the state of emergency until 5 PM; County offices are closed. A number of people asked me over Twitter and Facebook what a state of emergency means to people whose employers are expecting them to come in. I asked the county exec’s office if it’s illegal to drive:

"It literally means ‘only emergency personnel on the roads’ but there are other critical staff at various operations in the county–non government related. If stopped they would need to prove they are critical personnel." - Darcy Fauci

Andrew Block from the City (also under a state of emergency), when asked if it is illegal to drive, responds:
"It is, unless somone has an exemption, e.g. emergency vehicle."

As I write this, I can hear the motor of my landlord’s snowblower whirring away outside my window, trying to clear a path in the driveway.  In some ways, a pretty futile effort.  There’s 16 inches of untouched snow on my tiny dead end street and we’re waiting patiently for a plow to come rescue us. (The key word here is patiently. Snow plows don’t run on magic, people.)

Actually, my whole morning’s been pretty futile—I rolled out of bed at 4 AM to try and get to work. After a quick shower, I discovered that it was absolute folly to think my car would ever make it out to a major road… (Though it is worth mentioning that the major intersection down my block actually WAS well-plowed.)

I stumbled through the foot and a half of snow to the top of the hill, somehow imagining if I made it off my block I’d find a way in. 4 different cab companies refused to pick me up. A guy in a jeep pulled over to see if I needed a ride and then laughed when he found out I wanted to get to Vestal. A city plow stopped to honk at me, indiciating that I was getting in the way of the plowing. Finally, I slinked back into my apartment and went on-air from my apartment for a few minutes until Lori got to work.

Who knew that Snowpocolypse 2011 would grind Greater Binghamton to a halt this morning? Well, WBNG’s Andrea Michalenicz did. While the rest of us spent yesterday pitying ourselves for having to return to work Monday morning, Andrea knew that most of us probably wouldn’t make it.

Yesterday afternoon, Andrea posted to her Facebook page that she was updating snow totals and we were likely to get 14 inches.  Maybe you’re not friends with Andrea on Facebook, but you can always check her forecasts at http://www.wbng.com/weather . And OK, maybe Bing can be a bit behind the times when it comes to online tech, but there’s a few other resources you can use to beat the media at it’s own weather-reporting game…

TWITTER HASHTAGS #bingsnow AND #bgmsnow
What’s a twitter hashtag? It’s a way of labeling the "subject" if your tweet so that you can link it up with all the other tweets about the same topic. I’m not entirely sure, but I think our local snow tag started as #bingsnow until the Press & Sun decided to change it to #bgmsnow . Either way (you can use both), if you want to get on-the-street info about road conditions, snow totals, and closings piecemeal from twitter, just go to twitter.com and search for the hashtag. If you didn’t know what I hashtag was, go practice now so you know for next time. (And then you can drop the term in casual conversation at chamber of commerce mixers–I promise, you’ll get freelance web design offers you’re totally unqualified for.)

http://twitter.com/binghamtonmayor
OK, he’s not Newark Mayor Cory Booker yet (which is probably a good thing—with all the tweeting, how much mayoring could Booker actual be doing), but Mayor Ryan HAS set up a twitter address to address city situations like snow emergencies.

Last night at 10 PM, @binghamtonmayor tweeted: Plows + salt trucks out tonight + tomorrow, starting w/ emergency routes, then moving to side streets. Concerns? Call DPW Dispatch 772-7020.

Then at 7 AM this morning: City Hall opening at 11am today due to snow. Police, Fire and DPW to report to work as scheduled. Stay tuned for more updates.

After seeing lots of FB/Twitter traffic about the roads, I sent a quick message to the City for comment and got this response:

“It’s going to be a very busy day. We have all our available plows on the streets and we ask that citizens contact us directly with urgent concerns.”

In fact, AS I write this, I just got another tweet from @binghamtonmayor telling me that City roads are closed to all but emergency vehicles till 5 PM.

http://twitter.com/ny_broome
This is where you can get all those fun flood alerts… But it also told me this morning as soon as the County Executive declared a state of emergency—the one that told us all to stay off the roads till 10 AM.

Star 105.7 School Closing Page
http://www.binghamtonstar.com/pages/snowclosings.html
This is the fun happy page that I update with all the area school closings and delays. If we miss something, hit us up on http://www.facebook.com/star1057

@PSBJennifer
There’s a ton of reporters you can follow over at the Press & Sun. (See @PSBChrisKocher for fun stuff he’s heard on the scanner or @PSBChrisStrub for occasional breaking concert news)  But Jen jumps out of bed at the crack of dawn to bring us the early updates. She’ll let you know all the weather-realated stuff that’s been called into our local paper…

Now we’re CONSTANTLY getting inquiries about whether or not BU and BCC have closed.  Don’t call us; check twitter.com/binghamtonu and http://www.sunybroome.edu/.

PS, Broome CC DOES have a twitter, but as of 8:45 AM, it had no info on snow closings… @sunybroome (Maybe they should get on that?)

Anyway, after all that, here’s the important info I’ve gathered from all my online scouting:

• * Broome is in a state of emergency until 10 AM and only emergency vehicles should be on the roads. County offices open at 11.
• * City of Binghamton is in a state of emergency UNTIL 5 PM. Everybody should stay off the roads in Bing, the Parking Ramps are free today and tonight, residents are free to park in city ramps, and alternate parking is in effect. City offices are closed by the emergency folks still need to go in.
• * The snow will taper off, but now we have to worry about potential flooding. Aflood warning is in effect for the Susquehanna at Conklin, Windsor, Vestal and Waverly.

Stay safe, stay warm, and stop whining about the plows. THEY’RE COMING. This is why we HAVE states of emergency. So you can get into your jammies and tell your boss you’re not coming in. (PS, I just heard some plowing activity out my window… going to investigate.)

So by now, you’ve probably heard that the City of Binghamton shut off the water to a whole bunch of properties whose water payments were overdue for like a YEAR.

The city made about $500,000 by pressing some area property owners to pony up the cash.  Kudos to them.

But now, some enterprising criminals took advantage of the water cut-off scare by posing as city water officials and scamming an area resident who was told his water would be cut off if he didn’t pay up in cash!

Now we’re not in the habit of giving kudos to criminals, but if we decided to try a life of crime on for size, we only hope we’d be this conniving and clever.

Caught up with Andrew Block from the mayor’s office to ask him some questions about the scam…

So how did this guy pull it off?  Did he have a uniform or clipboard?  How did he convince people he was legit?

The scam reportedly involved two men – white, and in their twenties or early thirties, and wearing dark pants and white shirts. They showed up at 6am, and drove a white truck. Also, by all accounts, they only perpetrated the scam at one property.

Did he actually get any money?

The men reportedly got $150 from the person whose property they approached.

How would the city’s water dept REALLY contact you if they were trying?

As Mayor Ryan stated last week, door-to-door water bill collection is not and has never been City policy. Residents wanting to pay their water can do so by mail, online, and at the Treasurer’s Office on City Hall’s second floor.

The Water Department has worked in collaboration with other departments to contact users facing shut-offs in the following ways:

1. Shut-off notices sent via certified mail roughly three-to-four weeks prior to the stated shut-off procedure.

2. Shut-off notices posted on the properties two-to-three weeks prior to the procedure.

And that’s just the info that is specific to those facing the shut-offs. The City has spread the word about the water reforms to the public in general through a variety of media over the past five-to-six months. Since April, these reforms have been featured in about 10 Press and Sun Bulletin articles and more than 20 local news broadcasts. Additionally, city officials included a bookmark summarizing all the reform changes with the August water bill, created a dedicated page on the city’s website to explain and clarify all the changes, and then dispatched officials to seven neighborhood meetings across the city last month to explain the reform package.

We’ve also been communicating with the Department of Social Services, the Office of the Aging, Section 8, and member agencies of the Homeless Coalition in order to minimize the hardship any residents might experience from interruption of service. The City has also been in contact with Broome Community College and Binghamton University to address any issues faced by students living off-campus. Both schools have notified their students of the shut-off procedure, and Binghamton University’s Off-Campus College last week made an attorney available for consultation.

We’ve done everything possible to educate and inform our users of the policy. While we’re pleased the shut-off lists have dropped significantly, many accounts remain, and we’re concerned for their well-being.

If a tenant’s water is REALLY shut off because their LANDLORD didn’t pay, is there anything they can do?

If a tenant’s water is shut-off because their landlord didn’t pay, the tenant has several options.
First of all, they can pay the water bill – as well as a state-mandated $50 service fee – directly to the City, which will then turn the water back on as soon as possible; in cases like this, State law says that tenants can legally deduct the water bill fee from their regular rent, and doing so is certainly a way for tenants to recoup their possible losses. The City recommends that those who take that route seek legal consultation from our local service agencies. 

Second, tenants can seek other forms of support from the service agencies. Department of Social Services, for example, can provide support in the way of temporary shelter.

Again, the City wants to minimize the hardship faced by anyone affected by the shut-offs, and we’re maintaining close contact with the service agencies to ensure we continue to provide residents and business owners as much support as possible.