Photo of Metro-North's tracks through Harlem, via @BuzzFeedNews

New York isn't freaking out like Massachusetts, where Governor Deval Patrick signed an executive order banning cars from the roads after 4 p.m. ahead of a wicked winter storm bearing down on the Northeast, but there are a few service alterations for commuters around the region.

The Long Island Rail Road will be running additional service out of Penn Station to help commuters get home – three extra Babylon Branch trains (the last leaving at 3:31), four extra trains on the Port Jefferson Branch (the last leaving Penn at 3:24), one extra Port Washington Branch train leaving the city at 3:40, and a Far Rockaway Branch train leaving at 3:48.

"This is a serious storm," LIRR President Helena Williams said in a press release, "so it's best to get home early and avoid traveling as conditions worsen."

Subway riders will also see a silver lining in the storm: all weekend work has been canceled. "The MTA believes the underground subway service will be operating close to normal through the rush hour today," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said today, though some routes will run local, and bus service "may be curtailed."

Amtrak service from New York's Penn Station heading north has already been canceled, and the last southbound Northeast Regional will leave Boston's South Station at 1:40 p.m. (get off the internet and run!).

Mayor Bloomberg warned people to stay off city streets, with the heaviest snowing starting between 3 and 7 p.m., accumulating between 10 and 14 inches by early Saturday afternoon. Parking meters will be suspended Saturday, but not today, and alternate side parking is suspended until Sunday.

And for all those do-it-yourself electricians, the mayor has a message: leave downed power lines and trees alone.

City officials have said they don't expect the Gowanus's flooding to put anyone in immediate danger and that they believe the cleanup will be routine, in spite of the pollutants in the canal, which, according to the Environmental Protection Agency include a veritable cocktail of carcinogens: "PCBs, coal tar wastes, heavy metals and volatile organics." Local Councilman Brad Lander spoke with the EPA and said, along with the City's Department of Environmental Protection, the agency plans to conduct post-storm testing to "address potential issues of toxicity created by the flooding."

The Observer has found ourselves weathering the storm in an apartment just a block from the canal and was able to get some photos of the flooding right around high tide after 8 p.m. Since then, waters have receded below the high point they reached one block from the canal at Bond Street. If we are able, we will go out again later to get a more updated picture of the situation. For now, Click the slideshow to see shots of the Gowanus Canal breaking its banks.

While the only serious flooding we saw last night was on 2nd Street, this morning saw waters creeping up almost every block next to the canal near Carroll Gardens. Flooding in the canal is troubling as its a superfund site that is home to extensive industrial activity and has a long, well-deserved reputation as a hotbed of toxic sludge and pollutants. The Environmental Protection Agency describes the canal as "one of the nation's most extensively contaminated water bodies."

We reached out to several elected officials to get their take on the environmental and flooding risks on the Gowanus during the peak storm surge this evening. The only response we got was from the Mayor's Press Office, which directed us to Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Corey Chambliss.

"Let me look into this and get back to you," Mr. Chambliss said.

We'll update as soon as we have further information. For now, click the slideshow to see pictures of the floodwaters along the banks of the canal.

Update (6:39 p.m.): Mayor Bloomberg and one of his deputies discussed the situation with the Gowanus Canal in a press conference this evening.

Update (6:49 p.m.): Mr. Chambliss provided the following statement about flooding on the Gowanus Canal.

"This was just addressed in the Mayor’s remarks, but in addition: We encourage residents to observe existing advisories regarding the Gowanus Canal, and will work with the EPA to determine any potential impacts that result from flooding. Residents should wash their hands and practice proper hygiene if they come into contact with the canal’s water or sediments," Mr. Chambliss said.

Update (10:48 p.m.): Here are some pictures of the canal flooding during the peak of the storm this evening.

Gowanus Canal floodwaters at the dead end on Second Street earlier this evening. (Photo: Hunter Walker)

Many of the blocks along the shores of the toxic Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn are designated as part of the mandatory Hurricane Sandy evacuation Zone A. Though the city gave orders for residents of this area to leave their homes starting at 7 p.m., we spotted quite a few people out on the streets when we walked into the zone earlier this evening, including curious gawkers, emergency workers and neighbors who are becoming increasingly fearful that the notoriously polluted canal could overflow. 

The Observer entered Zone A at Carroll and Bond Streets shortly after 8 p.m. Though the businesses and homes occupying the old brick industrial buildings on that block were all shuttered, we spotted several people walking onto the Carroll Street Bridge to take a look at the state of the canal.

"It is so crazy high!" one little boy looking at the water said to his mother.

Indeed, it was high tide, and with the early force of the storm surge, the waters of the legendarily contaminated canal were just about a foot or two below the walls of its west bank and flowing unusually quickly.

Behezad Amiri, who said his home is about a half block east of the bridge past Nevins Street, the border between Zone A and Zone B, was watching the waters too. He said he had also come out to see the canal during the height of Hurricane Irene last year and pointed to where the water stopped during that storm.

"Hurricane Irene, see where it is right now? It's blocking the sewer," Mr. Amiri said gesturing toward the canal's high water mark. "It was maybe about a foot up from there at the worst point of Irene, so this is already a little--this looks pretty high comparably."

Though Mr. Amiri said he was worried to see the canal at such a high point before the storm and any heavy rains had arrived, but he told us he planned to "hang out at home" because his house was a block uphill from the evacuation zone. Walking with Mr. Amiri up Carroll Street, we were surprised to see a large crowd eating and watching the World Series in Monte's, a local Italian restaurant that opened more than a century ago and supposedly served as a hangout for the Rat Pack. On Third Avenue, one block from the border of the evacuation zone, there were also good-sized crowds at a members-only social club where men played pool inside and at the clam shack-slash-bar Littleneck.

When we came back to Littleneck about an hour later, the were only a few people seated at the bar.

"It kind of cleared out now," said the owner of the clam shack, Aaron Lefkove. "We're still open technically for another 45 minutes, but I guess since there's no more customers, we're going to clean up and go home."

Despite his plans for an early close and the threat of the storm, Mr. Lefkove said the restaurant had its standard number of diners.

"This is like a typical Sunday night, actually," he told us, before adding, "It's odd that everybody went home at 9 o'clock. Like clockwork, everybody got out of here."

As we spoke, a couple who said they lived across the street came in and asked whether Mr. Lefkove still had any of the lobster cakes they'd apparently heard raves about. He told them they were in luck: he had one order left. We asked him whether he planned to open the restaurant tomorrow and he replied that it was "to be determined." Mr. Lefkove went on to explain he was hesitant to close his doors despite the dire warnings from city officials because he sees City Hall's strong response to the storm to an attempt avoid the heavy criticism Mayor Michael Bloomberg faced after the blizzard that blasted the five boroughs in 2010.

"After the blizzard, where it was a complete shitstorm and the Bloomberg administration came under so much fire, any time there's any sort of inclement weather, the threat of it, they just batten down the hatches pre-emptively," said Mr. Lefkove. "I could be eating my words this time Tuesday, but, you know, I'm hoping for the best."

About a quarter of a mile away, back in Zone A on Second Street, which dead ends right at the edge of the canal, the situation did not look good. A police car was parked at the end of the block keeping people away, because the waters were overflowing and creeping about 15 feet up the block. Though this was the only area where we saw flooding, it was also the only area in the evacuation zone where we found residents still in their homes in spite of the order to vacate.

A man named Fred wearing an Obama button and glasses answered the door of a sandbagged building at the end of the block. He said he was there helping his friend, Eddie, secure the house for the storm.

"I'm not evacuating, period," Eddie said explaining that he had a large number of cats. "I can't go anywhere. Where am I going to go?"

We asked whether he was aware the city is permitting pets to stay with their owners in storm shelters. Eddie responded that he simply had too many animals to take care of.

"Eight total," said Eddie. "I'm a foster rescuer, neighborhood cats, so I also have kittens and I'm just going to bring them into a hallway upstairs."

The two men said they could stay with friends further uphill from the canal if things got too bad. They also knew some people nearby who would be willing to take "a few" of the cats.

"We're concerned, of course, we're not being frivolous, but it's difficult when you have cats to worry about," Fred said. "We're just going to kind of play it by ear."

Eddie told us they expected to be up all night getting the house ready for flooding.

"I don't care about the furniture, I just want to protect the animals and my paintings. That's what really matters."

After "20 years" living on the block, Eddie said he had seen the water flood this much before, "but never like this without the rain."

"This is scary," said Eddie. "It's going to come up here, I already know it. I feel it."

Like the rest of the area's residents, Fred and Eddie will have to see whether the storm's coming range and the predicted combined attack of the full surge and high tide tomorrow yield even further flooding. When we parted ways with the pair, we said we would come by to check on them as the storm progressed and looked forward to seeing them again.

"Maybe with a bathing suit!" Eddie quipped.

A few minutes ago, the building was struck by lightning...

...At least according to a bunch of people who saw it and Tweeted about it (and also, some folks in the Times building):

Elsewhere in odd forces of nature commenting on the new business leader of the New York Times, Michael Wolff weighed in with his take for The Guardian, best summed up by the last line of the piece:

So, Mark … lunch?

There were also some well-considered moments of thought hidden throughout Wolff's take. For example, he pointed out the fact that Sulzberger is still the "top operating executive" at the paper, even if Thompson has it in his title:

The peculiar compromise, leaving Sulzberger in place with full executive authority, but not giving him the CEO title, has meant: a) no reputable No 1 would take this job knowing they were really No 2; b) that it would be better for Sulzberger if that person who did ultimately take the job was unqualified for it; and c) that Sulzberger still has needed to find someone for the job who was not a joke, or nonentity – someone with some sort of stature (even imported).

Edmund Lee of Bloomberg Businessweek also noted of the pick:

The end result is the CEO has less power than the chairman, said Alex Jones, author of "The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times."

"The position of CEO is a little bit deceptive at the Times because the operational head of the company is the chairman, and that’s Arthur Sulzberger," Jones said in an interview. "The CEO’s job will be whatever Arthur decides it should be."

Lee's report also observed that Thompson's experience fending off Rupert Murdoch's British news properties may have also earned him points with the Sulzberger family.

As for points lost, Roland Li at the International Business Times weighed in, having already talked to some Times employees regarding the pick. One was not exactly psyched:

"He's done a decent job with the BBC's site, but nothing that any other adequate media executive wouldn't do, and certainly nothing exceptional," said a Times staffer. "The newsroom is skeptical because he is known less as a media innovator than a hatchet man for a legacy brand, and the BBC's business model is nothing like ours."

Skeptical of a hatchet man? You don't say.

Surely the world will get to know Thompson more by the way his presence is (or isn't) felt by newsroom insiders, but until then, we'll just have to go with media-on-media reactions to the pick, or by how he's being received by the forces of nature and/or gods of hellfire, which may or may not result in that wonderful Renzo Piano building being felled by a freak solar flare hail storm of rainy inferno in the coming days. For what it's worth, however, since we started writing this post, the sun has come out.

Take it to mean nothing. Or everything.

fkamer@observer.com  | @weareyourfek 

For those who don't know: Power companies employ what they call a Brown-Out when energy usage levels hit unusual highs (or if energy supply is somehow short during a period of typical usage), in which they reduce the power supply to certain parts of the power grid to keep it stable and allocate power to places where it's gone out or requires repair.

This happens on days like today, the hottest day of the year, when everyone wants to stand in front of an air conditioner or inside a fridge or dress themselves in sno-cones, resulting in what is also the highest usage of power for 2012 so far.

Reuters reports:

A spokesman at Con Edison, Allan Drury, said the demand for power on Wednesday was already higher than Tuesday's record for 2012 of 12,455 megawatts (MW). For Wednesday, Drury said the company forecast usage would peak at about 12,950 MW. That's still below the company's all-time record of 13,189 MW set in July 2011. One megawatt powers about 1,000 homes.

The Brown-Outs went to Midtown East and Sutton Place. They're not as worrisome as blackouts, but it's not the best scenario New York City's power-grid can face. Especially considering the aforementioned nasty labor dispute, which the Village Voice noted as having turned into a "class war" with no end in sight and which is dragging politicians into it now. Heat requires more power, more power presents the threats of blackouts and brownouts, and blackouts and brownouts require the help of a strong power utility workforce, which is currently short a few folks thanks to the dispute. In other words, pray for rain, or better yet, a quick resolution to ConEd's worker problems; one of the two before the heat gets any worse.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek 

Stay out of this.

There were heat advisories or warnings in 20 states on Sunday, with temperatures reaching over 100 degrees across most of the South. Adding to the misery were power outages caused by the huge storm that rampaged from Ohio through parts of the Northeast on Friday, killing 12 and leaving some metropolitan areas with long-standing power outages caused by high wind and lightning.

Larger cities are opening cooling centers for residents without air conditioning or power. New York City is under a heat advisory, with an expected high of 94. The heat wave may come at a particularly bad time for New York as Con Edison is negotiating contracts with its employees--the power grid may see unusually heavy demand but fewer workers available to answer the call if an outage occurs.

The general advice for anyone coping directly with the heat is to avoid heavy activity and take frequent breaks in a cooler environment if you have to be out in the heat.

CNN  and the National Climactic Data Center report records for "nearly 1600 high temperatures" have been broken in the last week alone.

Yes, another one.

New York City's news cycle has taken yet another earthly-related turn for the worst: In January, New York City registered record-breaking snowfalls. Over the summer, the city enjoyed both an earthquake and a hurricane (one of which disturbed a day, the other shut down much of the city for a weekend). And now, we have—of course—snow on the way. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Projected snowfall accumulations have drastically increased since Thursday’s forecast. It now looks likely that the suburbs will see up to a foot of snow, with an outside chance for six inches of snow inside New York City. October snowfall of this scale is unprecedented in the last 140+ years of official weather records at Central Park. The force driving this unlikely forecast is a Nor’easter of mid-winter proportions brewing off the Carolina coast. On top of the snow, this storm will drop temperatures into the 20s and 30s and spread strong, gusty winds.

Monday—Halloween—holds its own grim possibility (30% chance of rain with an overnight low of 39 degrees) for trick-or-treat-ready families and those adults shuttling around from party to party in their costumes, which are widely understood to often carry the possibility of being exponentially more effort than they're worth, as one rips it off at the end of a long, loveless evening, throwing it in an MTA trashcan, and waiting thirty minutes as one sobers up to go home so painfully, achingly alone.

We should also probably mention that the trashcan might not even be around this year.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

1. GAWKER. Sure, Media Power Bachelor Brian Moylan offers up sound advice ("don't buy up all the white bread in the supermarket," "charge your phone, iPad, computer, vibrator, and other necessary battery-powered electronics"), but mind you: this isn't Hurricane Advice so much as it is Every Day Advice For Otherwise Dysfunctional Persons.

2. GOLD BUGS. These people will find pretty much any reason to tell you to buy gold. Hurricane Irene is far less likely to send us back to the Gold Standard than the idiots telling you to buy gold because of a hurricane.

3. NOURIEL "DR. DOOM" ROUBINI. Not that he hasn't been correct before, and not that his war against gold bugs isn't funny, but reminder: Mr. Roubini isn't the "Dr. Doom" of anything but calling toxic assets as he seems them. Also, do you really think Nouriel Roubini is taking out three stacks of cash from the ATM today? (Answer: No.) You know what doesn't get wet in a hurricane? A bank account. If you take out more cash than you need and happen to lose/get wet/place line bets with it before it gets back to the bank, you will be down money, and chances are, you don't have the money to be down unless you are in Mr. Roubini's social circle.

4. DANA PERINO. Yes, take it from her dog, there is nothing better you should be doing right now other than sunning yourself. Reminder: This is a former White House Press Secretary.

5. BUSINESS INSIDER. You'll be reading quite a bit about what could happen if this hurricane hits New York City full-on, even though it likely won't. Somehow, Business Insider found it prudent to put a video of a New York City Tsunami Death Scenario at the bottom of a post titled Here's What It Might Look Like If A Hurricane Hit New York City. This is akin to using Transformers 3 to illustrate the threat of a space shuttle landing.

6. NATE SILVER. As it has been pointed out elsewhere, New York Times residential stat-boy Nate Silver noted the "multibillion-dollar" catastrophe scenario of a hurricane hitting New York. The second-to-last sentence: "These scenarios are exceptionally unlikely to be visited in the case of Hurricane Irene, an extraordinarily dangerous but not apocalyptic storm." Remember, that guy got famous because of fantasy baseball.

7. RAY NAGIN. No thank you, we're good.

8. PUBLICISTS. Recently arrived in an Observer inbox: an invite to a "Hurricane Party" at a Flatiron club. One could see this as a friendly extension of social good faith. Or a sneaky way to silence the press. If these people have a client, they have a cause...that likely can't be trusted, because they're paid to promote it, and will do anything to get between you and the truth of the matter. Publicists run and are ruining New York City and will eventually be responsible for us all being dead. But this applies to pretty much everything, not just hurricanes. Know that.

9. WIRED MAGAZINE. If they ratted out Bradley Manning, imagine what they'll do to you in a storm. You really gonna listen to these guys?

10. ANYONE GETTING OUT OF TOWN. We clearly already have very little invested in your cause as evidenced by our imminent departure. Sorry.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Why else would a special hearing planned just for South Brooklyn, the hardest hit part of the city--it's the only borough with two such hearings--wind up being cancelled. Twice, now. Because of more snow. The hearing was originally scheduled for last Wednesday, when the second big snowstorm hit, and today's slurry of snow, ice and sleat has pushed the meeting back until next week.

Whoever is controlling the evil weather machine that keeps this meeting from happening--God, Goldfinger, Mayor Bloomberg--they clearly don't want the truth to get out. This has nothing to do with striking workers or global warming. It's all about manipulating the salt markets.

CORRECTION: Looks like the conspiracy was on us. There was no hearing scheduled for tonight. The council was simply announcing that because it was canceled last week, it will be rescheduled for next week. Barring another blizzard, of course.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo