For meetings and events occurring on the eastern seaboard the worst seems to be over for most parts affected by hurricane Irene. Right now the system is a tropical depression situated over Québec and moving northeast. As we have seen from the news footage most of the damage seems to have occurred from the large amounts of rainfall as a result of the hurricane. New York City, for the first time, issued a mandatory evacuation order in the lead up to the storm. As always there are those voices saying that the news agencies overreacted. However most of our readers would agree that it’s better to err on the side of caution – especially with hurricanes. Does the word Katrina need anything?
For those of you that have meetings or conventions scheduled on the East Coast then I’m sure you’re busy just trying to get to those meetings (if there even occurring at all). All three major airports around New York City were closed but are now slowly getting back to normal. Boston, Philadelphia and Washington DC, like New York City, are all slowly working through their backlog of flights.
Where to Find Updates If You Are Meeting’s Been Affected by Hurricane Irene
Here at WTTC.com we’ve been keeping our eye on the situation as it’s been unfolding in the areas represented on our website (Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington DC). For up-to-date information you can refer to Huffington Post’s hurricane Irene page. Each cities convention and visitors Bureau (CVB) websites are great ways to find up-to-date information. If you have a meeting or need to travel to Boston you can check out their updates here. New York City’s official visitor site did an excellent job at keeping their information up to date throughout the storm. A look at Philadelphia’s site indicates that business is pretty much normal there. Washington DC’s site is still providing weather related updates and cancellations. Pretty good considering that DC was still recovering from the earthquake a few days earlier. Our hats go off to the tourism officials as they have done an outstanding job throughout this trying week.
So don’t despair as life is slowly getting back to normal on the East Coast. Many people are still without power (CMP is reporting that 275,000 customers had lost power on Sunday) as work crews are working around-the-clock to get customer’s power back. It seems the tricky part remaining is to get air traffic moving at a normal pace. So if you’re one of those persons stuck in an airport waiting for a flight to get to your destination hold tight as with each passing hour more and more flights are heading to affected areas.
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