Getting your player ready...
NEW YORK — Northeastern states face a jack-o’-lantern shortage this Halloween after Hurricane Irene destroyed hundreds of pumpkin patches across the region, farmers say.
Wholesale prices have doubled in some places as farmers nurse their surviving pumpkins toward a late harvest. Some farmers are trying to buy pumpkins from others to cover orders.
Hurricane Irene raked the Northeast in late August, bringing torrents of rain that overflowed rivers and flooded fields along the East Coast and into southern Canada. Darcy Pray saw his crop, about 15,000 to 20,000 pumpkins, wash into Lake Champlain. The Associated Press; Getty Images file photo
