Hurricane Earl

Greenwich’s emergency operations center has four flat panel televisions and two giant projection screens.

Usually they’re tuned in to The Weather Channel and various cable news networks — Fox News Channel seems to be the preference.

The only program on this afternoon was the Yankees game versus the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Yankees won 7-3.

At the town-owned Grass Island marine in Greenwich, about 13 boats were up on stanchions.

The water of Long Island Sound looks like a mirror, however.

Some storm….

Westchester County Airport Manager Peter Scherrer reports that flights are running on schedule.

“Pretty much, we’re operating normally,” Scherrer said. “Planes are coming in and out.”

Other than low cloud cover at the airport, it’s all systems go.

We’ll check back later with the folks at HPN, the call sign for the White Plains, N.Y., airport, which is popular with travelers from Greenwich and southwestern Connecticut.

Greenwich officials are going through contingency plans for recalling parks and public works employees if needed to deal with the storm during the holiday weekend.

The town’s EOC will remain partially open for the remainder of the day and night.

A decision on whether to run the town ferries to Island Beach and Great Captains Island on Saturday won’t be made until the morning.

“This is business as usual,” said Daniel Warzoha, the town’s emergency management director. “This is more of a drill.”

Here’s a list of public safety brass and agency heads currently huddled inside the town’s Emergency Operations Center: the nexus of communications and storm planning

First Selectman Peter Tesei; Selectman Drew Marzullo; Daniel Warzoha, the town’s emergency management director; police Capt. Tim Berry; fire Chief Peter Siecienski; Charlee Tufts, Greenwich Emergency Medical Service executive director; Health Director Caroline Baisley; from Public Works —  Commissioner Amy Siebert and Highway Superintendent Joe Roberto; from Parks — Director Joseph Siciliano, Tom Greco and tree warden Bruce Spaman; Tom Mahoney from Health; Tim Wall from the Greenwich Red Cross; and Jim Syrotiak from GEMS.

The Greenwich Health Department published a 16-page hurricane preparedness pamphlet.

It’s available at Town Hall and will be distributed during a Sept. 23 town-sponsored forum on hurricanes at Greenwich Library.

A PDF version of the pamphlet will be available shortly on the town’s Web site. As soon as it is, we will link to it.

A tropical storm watch for southwestern Connecticut has been lifted, according to an e-mail that was just sent out to local public safety officials by the state Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.

The downgrade applies to the western Long Island Sound area and coastal Connecticut west of New Haven.

“Note that periods of relatively heavy rain and wind gusts are still possible in this area.”

Ferries to Island Beach continue to run every hour on the hour, according to Joseph Siciliano, the town’s park director.

The parks department is discouraging beach-goers from visiting Great Captains Island, however.

The island is inaccessible two hours before and two hours after high tide, meaning the next time a ferry could dock there will be at 2 p.m.

Town officials didn’t want to take a chance having people get stuck on the island during the hurricane.

So the 10 a.m. boat to Great Captains Island took a detour.

“We just gave them a tour of the harbor,” Siciliano said,