Slicing and Dicing: Grammar

In today's news: an article (from a Times writer by way of the local paper) that reminds us that hurricane season lasts another two months — and it ain't over 'till it's over. Included, an indirect quote (i.e., not directly quoted, not in quotation marks) from the National Hurricane Center folks:

In the fall, most tropical storms that form near the Bahamas, as Rita and Katrina did, are steered north by weather patterns that deflect them harmlessly out to sea, toward the Bahamas or either coast of Florida, said Christopher W. Landsea, a hurricane researcher with the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

I'm taking a bit of an issue with how that was worded. I'm trying to give the author the benefit of the doubt: that it should be read as follows:

In the fall, most tropical storms that form near the Bahamas, as Rita and Katrina did, are steered north by weather patterns that deflect them

• harmlessly out to sea,
• toward the Bahamas
• or either coast of Florida...

It could, just as easily be read as:

In the fall, most tropical storms that form near the Bahamas, as Rita and Katrina did, are steered north by weather patterns that deflect them harmlessly

• out to sea,
• toward the Bahamas
• or either coast of Florida...

Harmlessly toward Florida?? (Well, the writer does appear to be from Los Angeles.) In my humble opinion, I might have suggested it be edited to say:

In the fall, most tropical storms that form near the Bahamas, as Rita and Katrina did, are steered north by weather patterns that deflect them toward the Bahamas or either coast of Florida, or harmlessly out to sea...

...just to avoid confusion.