Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Holds Storm Briefing in BInghamton

Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo held a briefing in Binghamton with state and local officials to outline the state's preparations for winter storm Harper. Governor Cuomo provided an update on the ongoing winter weather affecting communities statewide. As a large system forecasted to bring up to two feet of snow in some locations moves into the state this afternoon, the Governor has directed the State's Emergency Operation Center to raise their activation to level 3. Yesterday, the Governor directed the New York State Department of Transportation and the Thruway Authority to ban tractor-trailers and buses on the entire Thruway system, with the exception of I-95 in Westchester and Bronx counties, and most interstate highways starting at 3 p.m. today and lasting through the storm. Earlier this week, the Governor directed state agencies to conduct a number of preparatory measures, including the pre-deployment of critical assets, as well as the activation of both the State Emergency Operations Center and 450 members of the National Guard to assist with state storm response missions. Those measures all remain in effect. More information on the state's proactive preparedness efforts can be found here.

Good afternoon, thank you for being here. Let me thank my colleagues for being here, you'll hear from County Executive Jason Garnar in a moment. We're with Michael Kopy, who is the New York State Office of Emergency Management Head. We have the Department of Transportation Commissioner here, Paul Karas, New York State Police Colonel James Barnes, New York State Police Major William McEvoy, New York State National Guard Colonel Carlton Cleveland, and the DOT Region 9 Director Tom Wiser. I want to thank all the emergency responders who have already been working and getting ready from the County and all the towns and villages. These storms, these situations, really the key is the preparation and getting it done and getting ready beforehand. If you wait for the storm to actually hit it's too late and you never catch up, and we've learned that lesson in this State the hard way too many times. So, we are well coordinated, we've planned it out, we've moved equipment all across the State and we've done everything that we can do to prepare for the storm.

People should take it seriously; it is a serious storm and it is a statewide storm, which makes it more difficult. Normally when we have these extreme whether events they tend to be isolated to one or two regions. That actually makes it more manageable because then we can send more equipment from all across the State, personnel from all across the State to that one or two regions that are affected. But this is going to be, basically, a statewide storm and moving up into New England. But, literally from New York City to Buffalo there will be a serious storm condition. That makes it just more difficult because it stretches resources. Binghamton area, Southern Tier going up towards Albany is where we expect the storm to be the worst and we have deployed resources accordingly. We're sending more equipment and more personnel to the Southern Tier. And what's difficult about this storm is the combination; it's the expected snowfall, 14-20, 18-22 somewhere in that range is the forecast, plus high winds, plus freezing temperatures. And that's what makes it difficult, is the combination. Snowfall, plus the high wind, plus temperatures that could be minus 5 to minus 15 degrees, again according to the forecast. So, that combination is dangerous.

In terms of trying to prepare and stay ahead of it, we have issued a bus and tractor-trailer ban that goes into effect at 3:00pm today. The affected roads, the trailers, the truckers and the bus companies should check, but it's I-88, I-86, I-81, I-84, I-684, I-99, I-90, all the major thoroughfares, and we've given the trucking companies and the bus companies advanced notice so they deploy trucks to those roadways. One of the complicating factors is you have one tractor-trailer that jack knives, that stops everything. You have one or two cars that get stuck on the road that stops everything. So, the truck ban plus help from the people of New York, if you don't have to be out don't be out. I know it sounds simple but I can't tell you the amount of confusion and danger that can be caused by one or two cars that go out and get stuck and then everything backs up. The plows can't get there, ambulances can't move. So that is a recurring problem.

And that's just diligence on the part of people. I understand, you know, in New York we've dealt with snowstorms before and we're not intimidated by snow. I get it. But this is a bad combination. You could have possible white out conditions. They're forecasting near blizzard conditions, so sometimes the roads are just impassable and that's, I would air on the side of caution both personally and as a civic responsibility. All the people you see behind me, they're going to be working all through the night, all through tomorrow to keep the roads clear, prepare the roads, moving vehicles. We want them to be able to do their job and we don't want to make their job harder or more difficult by compounding the problem, and that's why ask everybody to use due diligence. We've been working with the County and I want to applaud and thank the County Executive, Jason Garnar, who's done a great job and his team. You know, they talk about governmental coordination. It sounds simple, governmental coordination. It's almost an oxymoron. You know, it's hard to get all these different agencies and all these different people to actually work together. But with Mr. Garnar's leadership it has worked very, very well. So the bad news is we're expecting the Southern Tier, Binghamton area to be one of the hardest hit, if not the hardest hit, areas in the State by the storm. The good news is we've done the preparation, we've deployed all the equipment, we've done everything we can. At the end of the day, Mother Nature does what she wants to do. She wins every time. But we've also done everything that we can to do to get ready for it.