*By Madison Alworth*
Florence has been downgraded to a tropical storm, but the effects are still being felt. At this point, rescue efforts are already underway, and at least three people have died.
The storm will continue to bring rain to the Carolina regions over the next couple days, and that ー coupled with winds up to 100mph ー could bring huge devastation.
"It's really hard to tell the impact of a storm while it's still going on," said Mark Watson, CEO of Argo Group in an interview with Cheddar. "Because it's moving so slow and because the eye is so wide, we have sustained winds that are hitting for longer periods of time in this storm today than we see in most storms."
According to real estate data company CoreLogic, around 759,000 interviews could be in the storm's path and damage could reach up to $170 billion. Since that estimate, the storm has been downgraded, but the risk is still high.
"At the rate that this storm is going, I think we are going to see a fair amount of flooding continue over the next 24 hours. It's going to take a while for the businesses and homes that have already been struck to get going," said Watson.
And that tends to be a huge problem for businesses. According to Argo Group, 25 percent of businesses that experience natural disasters never reopen again.
For those in the path of Florence, Watson recommends assessing the damage as soon as possible. "The sooner you can get in contact with your insurance company, the sooner they can get to you physically and financially."
Florence began its path over land Friday morning, making landfall near Wilmington, NC. The slow-moving storm is expected to head inland as far as Kentucky before heading back out to the Atlantic.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/the-financial-impact-of-hurricane-florence).
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
