Wednesday's Afternoon Update

Will Short Gorham | 4/6/2011

Busy Atlantic Hurricane Season Forecast

The Atlantic basin is facing a busier-than-average hurricane season, in part because of unusually warm water in the ocean, according to a seasonal hurricane forecast released Wednesday morning. Colorado State University's forecast team, which has been issuing seasonal hurricane predictions since 1984, calls for 16 named tropical storms this year in the Atlantic basin, which includes the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. The team says nine will become hurricanes, with sustained winds reaching 74 mph. Five are expected to be major hurricanes — Categories 3, 4 or 5 — with maximum wind speeds of 111 mph or greater. The average Atlantic hurricane season, going back to 1950, has 10 named storms — six of them hurricanes, and two of those major. The forecasters, Phil Klotzbach and William Gray, say there's a 72% chance that at least one major hurricane will make landfall on the U.S. coast in 2011 (the long-term average probability is 52%). "We expect that anomalously warm tropical Atlantic sea-surface temperatures, combined with neutral tropical Pacific sea-surface temperatures, will contribute to an active season," says Klotzbach. Insurance companies, emergency managers and the news media use the forecasts from Colorado State to prepare Americans for the season's likely hurricane threat. [Source: USA Today]

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MUST-KNOW FLORIDIAN Meet Paul Auslander, chairman and CEO of American Financial Advisors in Orlando. He will take the helm of the country's largest organization of financial planners, the Financial Planning Association, next year. Auslander is a registered representative with Foothills Securities and serves on Florida's Financial Literacy Council, which works to provide a single state resource to the public on financial literacy. » SECTOR PORTRAIT: Wealth Management » Financial Planning Association

For sale: the Boynton Beach Mall

The Boynton Beach Mall is for sale, becoming the second Palm Beach County mall in less than two years to be unloaded by Simon Property Group. The move reflects the changing habits of shoppers who prefer open-air or strip centers to enclosed regional malls. "They're pitching this as an operating mall, but malls are dying," said Randall Greene, a Jupiter developer trying to buy part of the Palm Beach Mall in West Palm Beach. Indianapolis-based Simon closed the Palm Beach Mall in 2010. The 26-year-old Boynton Beach Mall on the west side of Congress Avenue once was a bustling center of commerce, but in recent years it has been crowded by competition from a glut of new stores nearby. A cow pasture on the east side of Congress was transformed into homes, restaurants and stores, including a SuperTarget and a Best Buy. Real estate experts say the mall could be sold to another operator or be snapped up by a firm seeking to redevelop the land. New uses might include medical offices or even a senior living facility, said Peter Reed, a principal with Commercial Florida Realty Services in Boca Raton. [Source: Palm Beach Post]

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Governor agrees to a loan to keep state court system running

Gov. Rick Scott and Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles T. Canady agreed Wednesday to lend money the state's court system to overcome a budget shortfall in the millions that threatened to close courtrooms. The loan amount and other details were not immediately available, according to Craig Waters, a Florida Supreme Court spokesman. Judges warned Tuesday of cuts in services unless Scott approved an emergency $28.5 million loan. Without a loan, the shortfall would otherwise have forced statewide furloughs and cuts to services until the end of May, Waters said. Another appropriation, which was not part of Canady's request to Scott, will cover the courts through June. [Source: Tampabay.com]

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A new theme at Tokyo Disney: hardship

Hiroshi Miura and a dozen other taxi drivers dressed in crisp blue shirts were shooting the breeze in front of the quiet Tokyo Bay Hotel at dusk Saturday. They had one thing on their minds: "X Day." "That's the day Disney is going to reopen," said Miura, leaning against a buddy's black cab and lamenting how he has lost at least two-thirds of his fares since Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea shut down after Japan's March 11 earthquake and tsunami. "They're going to post a notice five days before 'X Day' on their website announcing what day they are starting operations. We're all waiting." It's not just taxi drivers who have been suffering without the 70,000 customers that the Disney resorts in Japan attract each day on average. Many nearby hotels, restaurants and shopping centers sustained only minor damage in the quake but have seen a major drop-off in business, vividly illustrating the economic ripple effects of the disaster. The two Tokyo Disney properties are among the most popular theme parks in the world, attracting more than 25.3 million visitors in the 12 months that ended March 31. [Source: LA Times]

Related:
» Florida car dealerships feel quake effect [Fort Myers News-Press]

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COLUMN: Flexibility is key for keeping good employees

When I had my first two kids a year apart, it became challenging to keep up with the deadlines and long hours that the news business required. After a few days of not seeing my little ones before they went to bed, I considered quitting. Instead, I asked my manager for a reduced schedule. That was the original definition of flexibility, an accommodation for a working mom. Fifteen years later, the conversation has changed. Today, flexibility is about the bottom line, a solution to a business challenge. "Today, companies are using flexibility to help drive business results," says Ellen Galinsky, president of Families and Work Institute, a nonprofit that conducts research on the changing workforce. "There is no one kind of flexibility that's right for all. The solution has to fit the problem." Of course, some businesses brush aside workplace concerns in the midst of an economic recession and are focused only on making the next sales target. But the changing workforce makes ignoring flexibility as a solution difficult for others to ignore. [Source: Miami Herald]

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Off the Hook Florida Chef Hooks TV Gig All morning, they've caught just one fish, an amberjack . Common off our coasts, it's good enough eating, though not the kind of fish a celebrity chef uses to show off. But that's the point. Charles Coe, the talented young chef behind Russell's Blue Water Grill in Palm Beach Gardens, thought it would be a good way to frame his newest endeavor as executive chef of the Sunday morning Lifetime television show Catch Clean Cook. The premise of the show is simple. Catch the best fish you can, clean and prepare it within hours of its leaving the water and cook it with the freshest ingredients you can find. It's an extension of the philosophy at the restaurant, which he owns with partner Russell Beverstein, where they are so obsessed with freshness that you won't find a freezer or microwave on site. On his show, he invites other celebrity chefs, like Hung Huynh from Top Chef, to cook with him, not against him, but to share knowledge. "I hate competition," he said. More from the Palm Beach Post and video below:

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