What the 'blizzard' really cost you

On the Spot Graphics, Jackson, printed up t-shirts mocking the blizzard that never was.(Photo: Courtesy On the Spot Graphics)The Northeast awoke Tuesday to a collective, "Wait, what?" as forecasts calling for heavy snow and perilous travel conditions proved wildly inaccurate."The Blizzard of 2015" failed to live up to all the foreboding theme music. Instead of feet of snow, residents locked down in a state of emergency, got mere inches.In frost-bitten places like South Dakota and Minnesota, they have a term for the weather we wound up with Tuesday: Partly cloudy. Perhaps the only thing "historic" about the storm, at least in New Jersey, were the extraordinary apologies that chastened meteorologists issued afterward.Clearly, mistakes were made. Now, somebody has to pay for it.That "somebody" would be you.For all its unrealized potential, the storm could still pack an economic wallop. The forecasters may have gotten that part right, at least.Consider the unnecessary overtime for road crews and other public employees.The lost wages and tax revenue from stores and others businesses that shut down early Monday and kept employees home Tuesday, in anticipation of something far more ... dramatic.The vacations, business trips and job interviews disrupted by the pre-emptive cancellation of thousands of airline flights across the Northeast. The extra aggravation caused Monday by those two words that every working parent of school-age children dreads: early dismissal.All the overkill adds up, in ways that may be impossible to tease out precisely.Preparing for the worstMichael Drewniak, a spokesman for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, said the state had little choice but to react to the forecasts the way it did."It's premature, I think, to assess costs. Regardless, it is the state's primary responsibility to protect the public in weather events like these, and the manpower and resources must be put in place to do the job," he said in an email. "Of course, like everyone else we rely on the forecasters' predictions, which were for a severe, even historic storm. Those predictions held until late last night, unfortunately."Local officials, too, felt their hands were tied.The city of Long Branch hired private contractors, had employees work overtime, and made sure it had an extra 500 pounds of salt on hand, expecting a bonafide blizzard."It's going to cost us big time with all our advance preparations, but what are you going to do?" said Fred Migliaccio, the city's public works director.Whatever "big time" means, you can multiply it by several hundred, considering all the other towns and counties that did the same thing.While Ocean County Administrator Carl W. Block said it was too soon to estimate the amount of money the storm and its hype had cost taxpayers, he expected to have a preliminary report ready for the Board of Chosen Freeholders' meeting Wednesday afternoon."There are a lot of county employees who heeded the dire predictions and took (Tuesday) off, so there's lost productivity," Block said.Still, he added, had the forecast correctly called for several inches of snow, the number of workers and equipment involved would have been about the same."We would have been salting the county roads and plowing," Block said. "We would have invested the same amount of time and money in getting the plows ready, on all the mechanics, all the precautions we've taken."Added Block: "If there had been three feet of snow on the ground this morning, we would have been plowing for the next two days and that's where the financial impact would have been felt the most.""We were ready for something big," Sea Bright Mayor Dina Long said of the preparations in her town. "Hopefully, we don't get complacent next time."Businesses impactedHeeding forecasters' dire warnings, some businesses planned to close Tuesday long before the storm ever reached the state.United Airlines, which accounts for the bulk of flights in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport, announced on Monday it was halting operations in the Northeast region on Tuesday.Banks and credit unions across the state shut down early on Monday, and many remained closed Tuesday, even though the forecast didn't pan out. On Monday, Wells Fargo workers were stacking sandbags to protect flood-prone branches in Ocean City, Seaside Park and Monmouth Beach. The bank announced Monday that all 305 of its branches would be closed Tuesday. The busy Northeast corridor was in line for a winter wallop that was predicted to bring anywhere from a few inches to a couple of feet of snow from northern New Jersey to Maine. Snowfall is heavy but less than predicted in many places. (Jan. 27) APWith his car still snowbound early Tuesday, Russell Capo, 66, walked six blocks from his Point Pleasant home to make a deposit at OceanFirst Bank so he could pay his electric bill on time. When he arrived, he found that the Bridge Avenue branch was closed."I would hope that they would be as accurate as possible for the working man and the general public, because our lives have to continue, even in a storm. There are things we still have to do," Capo said of the errant forecast.Other businesses that made plans to close Tuesday, including Best Buy in Eatontown, wound up calling employees in, in hopes of making the best of a bad day."If they're uncomfortable about (driving), we don't force them," store manager John Schneider said.At the Orchard Park sledding hill in Wall Tuesday, some parents who stayed home because of the forecast said they probably could have gone to work without much difficulty, but no one was complaining."You have to err on the side of caution," said Michele Spang, 50, of Spring Lake Heights, a specialist at the Apple store at Freehold Raceway Mall. The store closed early Monday ahead of the storm and it remained closed Tuesday, even though the mall itself had a delayed opening at noon."People make a big deal about being off, and they're all over social media (about the forecast being wrong) but it doesn't matter," Spang said. "It's a great day to be off and enjoy your friends and family."Rich and Nadine Demczyszyn, who own a printing business in Jackson, On the Spot Graphics, said they reluctantly took the day off, too, since many of their clients in northern New Jersey and Long Island had closed for the day."We're not a huge company," said Rich Demczyszyn, of Jackson. "It hurts."The couple may recoup at least some of their losses through sales of a storm-related T-shirt they began selling online Tuesday."I survived the Blizzard of 2015" it reads, tongue firmly in cheek.Winners and losersDavid A. Robinson, the New Jersey state climatologist and a Rutgers geography professor, said, as with any storm, there are bound to be winners and losers. The former group, he added, would include the supermarkets and hardware stores that were overrun with shoppers prior to the storm."Some people have benefited from this, others haven't, but overall, when you stop the economy, clearly there's an impact," he said.Some of the economic costs, he added, can be mitigated by the fact that so many people today are able to do their work from home."I mean, Rutgers is closed today, but I've done nothing but sit in front of my computer (working) since 7 o'clock this morning," he said. "You're the 12th person I've spoken to, and there's more waiting."Virtually all those calls, of course, were from reporters wanting to know what went wrong with the forecast."I knew when I woke up today that it was going to be a day of 'splaining," he said. "There's a lot of 'splaining to do."Contributing: Susanne Cervenka, Erik Larsen, Amanda Oglesby, Dan Radel and Russ Zimmer, Asbury Park (N.J.) PressBlizzard hammers New England, spares New YorkJan 27, 2015