A big DUH. Thanks for telling me the obvious. it is now perfectly well behaved 
use DateTime;
my $dt = DateTime->now(time_zone => "EST5EDT") ;
say $dt->hour ;
9

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which is the right time {it's now 9:32}. Thanks!

In reply to Re^2: Baffled by DateTime by BernieC
in thread Baffled by DateTime by BernieC

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