Remember this, please. Homeowners insurance does not cover storm surge or other flooding damage. When it is all done, who is going to pay for this . Right now florence is moving very slowly and thats bad. It will hover over a vast area and dump rain measured in feet. What were doing here is bring you the story of mass disruption for 10 million of our fellow americans. Throughout the program well keep you in touch with the market action. Well go up again at the opening bell this morning but the story today is florence. Varney company is about to begin. Stuart all right. The story nownow is rainfall and the storm surge, details . Ashley the problem it made landfall 7 30 this morning, near wrightsville beach. It is hovering along the coast, parallel as it moves slightly south now. This is bad news because there is so much moisture. Of course strong winds, gusting as you said, stuart, 100 miles an hour. It is not going anywhere very fast. Weve seen tremendous amounts of rain. 10 or 15inches is common. We have this another 24, 36 hours, we could see rainfall totals in the 40, 50inch area as we see this spin along the coast. We heard of rescues going on. New bern, North Carolina, jacksonville, North Carolina, these are areas where rescues ongoing. New bern in particular, Morehead City, storm surge up to nine to 12 feet in places. That will push water inland up to two miles they believe. Some of those rivers are not built for this. You will have an ongoing flooding catastrophe from the rain and some storm surge pushing water inland. Stuart let me check one number. Already in many parts of this area, there is 10 to 15 inches of rain . Ashley especially North Carolina, the front right quadrant you can see there, wrapping around, massive rain bands extend out hundreds of miles. The worst part of this, stu, moving, very, very slow. I know we have Kristina Partsinevelos in myrtle beach. They havent picked any rain yet but it is coming because this thing is slowly, slowly drifting south. Stuart jeff flock is on the ground in Carolina Beach. Jeff, last time we saw you, the wind was blowing but now youre in the eye of the storm you think . I have extraordinary picture for you surrounded by all of this chaos. This is the eye. This is what the eye of the storm hooks like. This is ragged eye. Not like we see blue sky above us. Look, there are birds flying in the sky. It is dead calm. Not a breath of air, amazing in the midst of the chaos. Were able to see the kind of damage. This is the boardwalk in Carolina Beach. You see this is hampton inn hotel. You see damage there. This is not catastrophic damage. This is firely minor damage, but damage nonetheless. If you saw pictures from us earlier, we spent the morning hammered by a cat1 storm which is still a very strong storm, you know, Hurricane Force winds, we got hammered by it. But now past us, it is not past us, over us, the center of circulation is over us, once it comes past, the good news, we go out to the beach, sort of look there, the good news about this, because all of that wind was proking this way, coming at us in that direction, counter clockwise circulation it was pushing the storm surge back. There wasnt storm surge here. Once this eye goes past. Well get the other side of it, and we will get store surge. I dont think it will be significant. I dont think it will disrupt these berms. I think well be okay but well still get it. Were not done. It is extraordinary to almost see sunshine up there. Stuart jeff, well get back to you later. By the time we get back to you, im pretty sure the eye will be going past you, youre back to the wind and rain. Well be back to you shortly, jeff. Thank you very much. Reporter so it goes. Stuart this is a story of financial misery for a lot of people. I want to focus on insurance angle here. Market watcher mike murphy with us. I have some numbers. 204,000 people have Flood Insurance in South Carolina. 134,000 in North Carolina. Everybody else who has Homeowners Insurance they dont have Flood Insurance. Everybody, a lot of people take a big hit. Individuals will. When you look investing, stuart, the Insurance Companies, years ago, Big Insurance Companies would sell off in the face of a big storm like this because they would have to pay out a lot of damages but now people realized when a storm like this comes the Insurance Companies raise rates. Flood insurance is extremely expensive. They go into these areas, raise rates. It become as positive for the Big Insurance Companies. So the people who are going to be hurt are people who own the property in the eye of this storm, that is the real loss. The loss isnt to the Insurance Companies. Insurers do just fine for this. Stuart most people dont have Flood Insurance. If you have got a hurricane insurance, and there is such a thank available, you still got a massive deductible of about 4 sometimes of the insured property. So this is a story where the, it is individual that takes a huge hit. Can i wrap it up with that . You can wrap it there. To own oceanfront property comes with this big risk. Every now and then they call this the storm of a lifetime down in those areas. It is a big risk, and rebuild, and a great buying opportunity if anyone is selling down there. Stuart should we be rebuilding in flood zone on the coast . Should we do that . Tell me one great oceanfront area where you dont have massive Beautiful Homes i love to hear about it but for the most part people pay up for oceanfront views and oceanfront property. Stuart so long as we dont have to pay to rebuild it. That is the moral dilemma. Ashley taxpayer picks up the bill. Stuart why should the taxpayer pick up the bill in a area knowing no argument. Stuart not taking you on. But you stay there for a second. We have a lot more for you. I want to bring in amber parker on the phone please. Craven county, North Carolina, hr, Public Information director. I believe maam, you are in new bern is that correct . Is that right. Thats correct. Were in craven countdown in new bern at the Emergency Operations center. Stuart we understand there is a rescue operation going on all night in new bern. Have you got everybody out . No, not everybody. We had rescue operations that started yesterday. We have had numerous reports of individuals trapped by high water, flooding. People on their roofs, trapped in cars or attics. Weve been working as hard as we can to get to those individuals. We currently have five swiftwater rescue teams out there. We are working with the louisiana cajun navy. Stuart the cajun navy arrived. That is good news indeed. Yes, theyre a welcome sight. Stuart as i understand it you were hit with sudden, rapid rise in water, at your Emergency Center, is that correct . No right. We did actually have some water in our Emergency Center. This facility were in was old jail. There is sally port war vehicles drive in. Almost like a big hole that goes under the building. So some water did run into that area but it did stablize once that hole filled up. And we dont have a whole lot of water and were perfectly safe in our facility. Stuart now the people that you have rescued, and people who are still already, still in danger, were they warned to evacuate . Are they in the evacuation area and they stayed . Yes. Craven county did issue a state of emergency on monday and Tuesday Morning we issued a voluntary evacuation for lowlying areas of Craven County. By 2 00 p. M. On tuesday increased that to a mandatorywide evacuation. We put out the evacuation. We did that worked with the state of North Carolina to designate a inland shelter in sanford, North Carolina. To make sure residents could get to the shelter, we provided transportation, we asked every resident who needed transport toyings at that call us. We went to their homes. Picked them up, brought them to a Central Location where we partnered with the Craven County schools, got those individuals on buses taken to the shelters. Stuart do you think those individuals should have have gotten out when the first warning came . They certainly should have. We were able to get 107 people out to that facility in samford. Our current Craven County shelter numbers are roughly 939 people actually stayed here in Craven County while only 107 went with us to sanford. Stuart amber parker, thank you very much indeed for calling us. Thank you very much for being with us. I know youre busy. Thanks for being with us. Thank you. Stuart were staying on it. This is florence day. Well keep you in touch with other news items specifically the market. Look at that well be up at the opening bell this morning. We were opening up last couple days. Look at this. This is pretty wild video i think you agree. This is coming from topsail beach, North Carolina. That is or was a bp gas station, totally destroyed by the high winds. There is a lot more video like that. Next were going live to more head beach, North Carolina again. We have a report on the ground. Were talking to commanding general of corps of engineers. They are people helping clean up the mess after the storm passes. There will be more varney and florence after this. So you dont die waiting. Upmc does more livingdonor liver transplants than any other center in the nation. Find out more and get out of line today. Stuart the market opens in 15 minutes, it will go up at opening bell. Next case. Joining us now lieutenantgeneral todd semini from the army corps of engineers. Welcome to the program. Stuart, thanks for having me on. First i i want to say from all f us in the department of defense our thoughts and prayers go to all people affected. Therein the midst of this storm a lot of searchandrescue going on. We want to thank the great First Respond is doing everything they can to be able to be boots on the ground to having happen out there. Stuart thank for being there, general. This is real misery for millions of our fellow americans. But what i want to ask you about is, you may the guy in charge of a major infrastructure rebuilding program, when this is all over. You will be in charge of that . Stuart, i think the main thing it is not the corps. It is everybody in the department of defense pulling together. And i think the most important thing i want to stress to you, i was in the pentagon yesterday afternoon with general owe oshaughnessy, the northcom commander. He had leaders from the army, navy, air force, marines, continued to stress how significant, the secretary of defense, secretary mattis, wants all of us happying forward. Anticipate where those requirements are. Be prepared to be able to make sure we are getting those on the ground as fast as possible. Even last night, general milley, the head of the army had Senior Leaders army in walking us through, what can we do to lean forward. You asked the question about the army corps, but right now we have 10,000 people deployed throughout the department of defense. A lot of helicopters already on standby. It is the whole department of defense came in to help out. The corps part is a small piece of that. Stuart first priority, what is it . Right now assessments. From my guys on the ground, im talking commanders down on the ground, we have commanders in wilmington and charleston, get out boots on the ground as fast as possible, still be safe, understand what this water is doing. It is obviously a little too early to get those assessments but if there is challenges with seawalls, having problems with things where local officials need help, we want to be there. Were femas engineers. This is really coming under any support that the local and state officials need from fema but it is to be able to understand where is there still risk. Stuart, probably the best example of that is dams. There is about 10 dams that the corps of engineers has, those are safe. Last 10 days were building free board, enough room to store this water. Im not worried about those. The challenge is the 8,000 dams in the carolinas. Some are a little higher risk. These are state and local dams f a mayor has a problem if a local official has a problem and calls us up, we have teams on standby to be able to assess, what is the risk tosafety. If we need to give advice on sandbags, bringing in what we call super sandbags, how do we make sure there is no more degradation to the existing structures. Stuart by the looks of things that happened so far, projections what is likely to happen in next 36, 48 hours, would you have to say the cleanup is going to take a very long time. It will be months, isnt it . Of course it is. We have a massive Debris Mission we do for fema. We already have contractors on standby. As soon as were able to get into those areas, this is working with the state officials, how do we go in to begin to start restoring life to central normalcy . How do you get trees out of the yard . A lot is opening up Road Networks so life safety guys can get what they need to do to get a lot of work there. Will probably dead animals out there. How do we continue to remove those and the Debris Mission. Other thing were leaning forward, temporary power. Youre hearing numbers how many people are without electricity there. Is Massive Mission fema working along with the rest of the states to reinforce the Power Companies and go on down to rebuild the power. We dont do the power grid. But we have a lot of temporary generators on standby. Most of the dod assets are stored at fort bragg. If we in fact need to come in with temporary generators a big hospital, a nursing home, fire station, what do we need to do to get those facilities up and running this is whole complexity, when does the phone call come in now . Almost like a fire station. Wheres that challenge that is out there with the state and local teams. What does the corps need to do along with dod to be able to respond to that. Stuart general, if im ever in trouble in a Natural Disaster im calling you because you seem to be the right guy to come out and help. We appreciate it. Sir, you call the pentagon and dod will be there for you. Stuart okay. General, seriously, thank you very much for joining us, sir. Good stuff. Thanks for having me on, sir. Stuart all right, where are we going with this. Look at that. That is a storm 1 2. Ashley the general mentioned Power Outages. Half a million now. Mostly in North Carolina. That number is expected to climb. Stuart this thing is just sitting there. Dumping rain. If you said 10 to 15 inches already. Ashley already. Stuart amazing. Futures show a small gain for the stock market ten minutes time. Well take you there. And were covering florence. Neil florence has arrived. Specifically made landfall at 7 15 eastern time this morning. And thats where it is now, hovering over, right around the border, the state line i should say between north and South Carolina. You can see some of the damage that weve already seen. Thats bp gas station blown off its hinges so to speak. We have got video of extraordinary degree of wind and rain coming right at the coastline. Earlier ash reported that so far even though it only just made landfall, it was 10 to 15 inches . Ashley 10 to 15 inches conservative measure mostly in North Carolina but these same rain bands continue to come in off the ocean. Not unlikely that perhaps some places will get 40 to 50 inches of rain. You can only imagine that will do to the rivers in the area. Especially storm surge pushing seawater up two miles inland on some of these rivers. Its a slow motion disaster as you watch flooding and floodwaters rise in so many communities. Stuart this occurs, this is personal disaster. This is misery for maybe 10 Million People. Ashley yeah. Stuart imagine, youve been forced out of your own home. Ashley right. Stuart you dont have much to eat. Ashley right. Stuart you cant find a hot meal. Susan no power. Stuart duke energy, the major utility in the carolinas, one of the two, already closed one nuclear plant. Ashley right. Stuart the brunswick plant, because it is in the paths of the storm. This is standard technique. They have got to do it. Theyre saying three million could possibly lose power today. Ashley when you leave your home, you you have no idea what you come back to sues sues those that cant leave their homes, the elderly, the ones with children. You understand the mentality. Those that cant leave, their relatives flood in to help them, right . Stuart go ahead. This is 10 to 11 Million People done this. This is is one of the booming business areas. People are leaving hightaxed states like North Carolina, South Carolina. Theyre faced with this, which is going to be disaster for a lot of people. Stuart how about the highend real estate around hilton head. That could take a nasty hit. Ashley cleanup will take months. Stuart it will indeed. This is the story of the day. This is the arrival of a major hurricane. It has arrived. It is hovering and dumping a lot of rain. Well take all the way through today, todays is about the hurricane. Well mention the stock market which i will be up when it opens in four 1 2 minutes time. Well take to you both. Stuart right. 30 seconds from now the stock market opens on this, i will call it nor recognize day, because florence has arrived. Well discuss the impact on insurers and were going to look at the impact on the overall economy. Our collective opinion looks like we think it will be shortterm bad for the economy but longter maybe not so bad given a lot of rebuilding. [opening bell rings] five seconds to go. This is a friday morning and were expecting a very small gain. Lets see how we do. We were up over 140 points yesterday. Were up this morning, yes, up is the word, up 16 points. Thats it. Were at 26,160. A fraction shunnal gain for the dow. Were off and running. S p 500, that is the same boat. Fractional gain. Nasdaq composite is also slightly higher up. 5 . Look at property insurers, how are they doing. Allstate unchanged. Travelers down three cents. Thats it. I have more come monetariry on the property insurers in just a moment. You expect them to take a hit . Not so far. How about the utilities . Duke and scana big in the area affected. No huge impact there. How about the Home Improvement retailers who can expect to do bell, given a lot of people rushing in for all kinds of, what is it shingles, heaven knows what else. Home depot up 50 cents. Lowes up 30 cents. No big move. Generac, they produce highend generators. They usually do well in catastrophes like this. I think runup already occurred. This morning theyre down 30 cents. Tobacco stocks, you might wonder why they would be affected. The truth is, the carolinas where we grow tobacco. Ashley a lot of it. Stuart if some of those tobacco fields are flattened crop affected, therefore the stocks are going up. Difficult day to cover but were doing it. With us today, jeff sica, mike murphy, susan li and ashley webster. Jeff, in my opinion, shortterm bad, huge disruption, longterm much better because of huge rebuilding. What do you say . I agree. Most of the storms of Natural Disasters affect small businesses, that will be impacted dramatically. As far as the overall market and economy, it will be a blip, if that. There will be a very resilient economy locally but not nationally. There will be no effect. Stuart mike . Totally agree. North carolina, South Carolina, areas affected by the storm, better after rebuild. Story about the lives and people in risk. Stuart a story of human misery at this particular point. Anything to ad . Property claims go up after the week after but recover. We have auto sales picking up in years after disasters like hurricane heart have, irma, possibly florence. Ashley questions about regulations. Were they too lax and people out in areas building they shouldnt. That is always questions. Stuart should we rebuild areas that get flooded. Moral question. Financial question. Who pays. If you take the risk, who takes the financial risk . Is it you and i the taxpayer or is it the homebuyer . I dont know that. Lets get to insurance. Put those on the board again, please. Mike, you dont think it will be a big hit for the two insurers who are big in the carolinas . No. This gives them the ability to raise premiums on people. Insurers they have it figured out what theyre taking in from you. They usually dont lose money taking your insurance. They will be covered one way or the other. Even though paying out a lot of money they take in money. Stuart if you have a regular homeowners policy, storm surge, flood damage, not covered. You have to get Flood Insurance from the federal government, from the fema people. Number of people with that insurance is going down. Also. There is about 5 less people who have Flood Insurance this time than the last Natural Disaster. Thats problematic, because there is a lot of people who dont get their homes back because theyre relying on federal aid. That is not going to happen. Stuart you run a hotel town are. Yes. Stuart in the carolinas. I own a hotel in hilton head South Carolina. We have been hit hard. Were waiting to see what the Property Damage was, is. Obviously were more concerned about our workers and lives of People Living there but it is impactful the you talk about the Hospitality Industry in north and South Carolina is about 50 billion. That is going to be dramatically impacted. Stuart forgive me for asking, you dont have to tell me, do you have Flood Insurance on your hotel . We do. Flood insurance is very, very expensive in coastal towns. Getting more and more expensive. As mike said we needed to individual for a time like this. But what people dont count is the amount of tourism we will actually lose as a result of this. Ashley thats a good point. Stuart youre not insured for that, are you . Were not insured. Our workers are counting on busy tourist season. Stuart what is your deductible on Flood Insurance . I dont know exactly what it is. Ashley you dont want to know. Stuart laughing about it because often 2, 3, 4 of the insured value of the property. If you have a multimilliondollar hotel youre paying tens of thousands of dollars in insurance. A lot. When you look at these things you wonder why you pay them. When youre in the midst of them you wish you had more. Stuart wellsaid. Susan, what do you got . Susan oil. That is a big deal. Colonial pipeline goes from houston to new york, pipes gas and diesel and oil across the states. That could be hampered or damaged through Hurricane Florence. The Atlantic Pipeline goes across North Carolina. Stuart watch it for that. By the way following interest rates, any pointer for the stock market. Look at this. I dont know if we get it on the screen, yield for 10year treasury hit 3 . That is magic mark. Ashley Industrial Production in august was strong number. Fed could raise rates again at end of this month of the we see the yield go up. Stuart however, 10 yield has not produce selloff on wall street. Nobody case. Nobody case because it is moving higher because the underlying fundamentals support higher interest rates. As long as that is the story market will be fine. Stuart i dont want to digress too far away from florence. Market seems like it wants to go up ben. Were in another one of those faces. People are focusing not on trade wars or political events but focusing on underlying earnings and prospects for next year are strong. Stuart not so much wages but middle incomes are going up. Incomes and wages going up. Stuart big board shows a gain of 28 points. 3 yield on 10year treasury, florence notwithstanding. Lets check the airlines. Latest count, we have more than 19 flights canceled. Airlines 1900 flights canceled. The airlines have to reposition planes. Reposition them that this storm could hover and linger for some time. Most of the airlines are down. United continental show as small gain. How about the hotels . I would imagine they do well. How is your hotel doing . Do you have anybody in the hotels. No. Were a big golf crowd. I dont think any golfers are flying down to play 18 holes today. Stuart i hate to laugh or smile at a time like this because this is human misery on a mass scale. That is the way to look at it. Hotels mostly higher. Travel websites i dont know what the impact would be up or down, but im looking at, trying to look at travel websites. Cant get them up at the moment. Susan theyre higher at this point. They usually do well unfortunately with Natural Disasters because people use them to book. Ashley car rentals. Stuart not seeing profound impact on any particular industry or group of stocks. Susan car rentals almost doubled last year during the hurricane season. Stuart really. Susan during the hurricane, atlantic season go up 80, 100 . Talk about property, what happens, there will be a lot of rebuilding of a lot of properties. So the Construction Industry gears up to go down there and invest. Ashley economic recovery. Stuart with the internet we have such great coverage, and like you are doing right now, great coverage of these events. People realize what impact is and what is really negatively impacted. They realize things come back quickly. So youre not seeing any massive overreaction in the market. Keep in mind there is a trillion dollars worth of homes in the path of this storm, one trillion dollars, and just about everyone of those homes is going to need a level of repairs the some will be destroyed, need to be rebuilt. That stimulates local economies. Stuart 758,000 homes in the path of the storm as it is suggested. A lot of that will be highend real estate. Yes. Stuart especially where you are. You have a lot of people who migrated down there. That is why we invested down there. Theyre from here. They wanted to be there. Its a buell place to live. And a great place to vacation. They will have to adam. Stuart show me the price of oil please. I want to see if any impact is there. Mike, do you expect an impact from this . Oil right now is really a story of supply and demand. I dont think this will have major impact at all. Stuart how about susans point, gasoline . Susan gasoline pipeline disruption. There was run up start of this week. There was already priced in anticipation. No refineries have been affected. Stuart 2. 85 still as the national average. Ashley weve been at that level a long time. Stuart so no impact there. Amazon, accused of raising water prices . Now i heard a little about this, tell me the rest of the story. Susan amazon is being criticized possibly inflating prices as residents in north and South Carolina preparing for Hurricane Florence. Many local grocery Warehouse Stores sold out of basics like water, like food. Now locales turned online to buy their goods. What they found water cases that are now costing double what they usually cost online. Amazon, for their part says it is Third Party Sellers that have been hiking up prices. Supply and demand issue. But it is not them. Amazon is not price gouging residents. Stuart price gouging will be an expression you hear a lot of as this thing moves through. Always the truth. Thats right. Were up 38 points on the Dow Jones Industrial average. And, since were kind of a regular show today, it is 9 40. I have to say, jeff zika, mike murphy, thanks for joining us on a very important day, appreciate it. Were up 43. 44 points. There we go. 26,187. Thats where we are on florence day. The cajun navy a group of volunteers that bring their own boats to Natural Disasters to help rescues, sending more than a thousand boats to the carolinass to help stranded residents. Well talk to the president of the cajun navy in our next hour. Rising demand for lithium used in batteries is exceeding supply. Current lithium brine extraction methods use solar evaporation ponds that take over a year to process. Mgx minerals has developed a technology to rapidly extract lithium in just 1 day, using efficient clean technology. Mgx minerals the Renewable Energy company. Symbol mgxmf with new, more secure numbers. But con artists, they never change. Theyll always try to steal your medical identity. So, what can you do . Guard your card, just like a credit card. Dont give your medicare number over the phone or email. And remember, medicare never calls unless youve asked them to. To find more ways to guard your card, go to medicare. Gov fraud. Dont let your guard down. Stuart we keep inching higher. The dow just shy of 26,200. Back to the storm, back to florence. Christine christine that. Only people driving are Police Officers. That is the first ambulance ive seen this morning. There are signs of debris everywhere. Literally a massive sign flew over down a few minutes ago. Well not stick too close to it because you dont want it to hit. The situation right now youre seeing about 50, well, 5,000, debris flying everywhere. 5000 homes in this area, already without power. This strip, im on ocean boulevard, a hot tourist destination. Clearly not the case anymore. Everything is shut. Only one or two hotels are open. Im not seeing anybody outside. Everybody is boarded up. What were expecting right now, as youre seeing winds coming from all ends of the spectrum here. The ocean is that way. Well point that way if we can because there is cars coming. The wind is starting to pick up, before you had the water out back. But now it is coming forward. So well expect the rain to really hit because it is already hit in north myrtle beach. It is starting to drizzle here. The wind is picking up. The next thing to follow is the torrential rains is the big concern here. People that stayed, 75 of the population in myrtle beach area have evacuated. Those that chosen to stay, they have done this before. They survived hurricane hugo. They survived other hurricanes before. They can handle it. When you think of torrential rains and flooding, there is only so much a wooden plank or steel can do to stop water from entering. This is major concern. It is a waitandsee game. Lift rally across the road, stuart, feel free to ask me any questions you want because i can hear you, it is everywhere, it is everywhere. There is nobody on this road kept for us trying to i have if you the latest coming from myrtle beach. The storm, the eye is where jeff flock is now. It will be heading down south. Were expecting a lot of rain to come very, very shortly. Stuart i know you can hear me, christina. So i give you one piece of advice. Flying debris that gets you. Trust me, i know that. Im not staying near any of that. Thank you. Stuart well see you shortly. Kristina partsinevelos right there. Duke Energy Closing one of its nuclear path in the path of the storm. Come on in duke Energy President david fountain. David, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. Closure of that plant, brunswick, plant on the cape fear river, that was just done for pure safety reasons, correct . Stuart, thats correct. Im here in Hurricane Command Center in raleigh. Consistent with our procedures we determined if a plant like Brunswick Nuclear plant south of wilmington will experience sustained Hurricane Force winds. If so, our operators began orderly systemic shutdown of generating units. We do that two hours prior to expected impact. Stuart david, im told that Nuclear Power plant is built to with stand winds of 200 miles an hour. There is no safety problem here . That is exactly right, stuart. Multiple layers of protection at nuclear plants. Plants designed to support this type of event as well as operational procedures, back up equipment, systems. We have welltrained personnel who remain on site throughout the event. Stuart with that plant closed, how many people do you think might be losing power, or out of power in the area that you serve . We wont have any outages as a result of lack of generation but well certainly have outages as a result of Hurricane Florences destructive impact on the power grid. Since Hurricane Florence made landfall earlier this morning we experienced over 300,000 outages. We expect those to increase throughout the day and the weekend as Hurricane Florence moves through the carolinas. Were currently estimating stuart, one to three million customers will lose power, of four million homes and businesses we serve in the carolinas. That is pure misery, david, isnt it . It is not your fault t will take time to get power back to these poor people. Your heart goes out to them, when you have no power, no screws, probably in a place not youre own home. Dont have much to eat, not a hot dinner, that is pure misery, isnt it . We understand how difficult for our customers to endure a storm such as this. And outages that could last not just days but weeks in hardest hit areas. That is one of the reasons weve amassed a Restoration Army of over 20,000 line workers and tree service personnel, poised and ready to begin the restoration effort as soon as safe to do so. Flooding and things like that, stuart, it will take us some time before we can get out to do a Damage Assessment. Stuart david fountain, duke power, i know youre business. Back to work. See you later. Thank you, stuart. Were so grateful for the Emergency Personnel and rescue workers firstresponders in and north and south carolinians are resilient bunch. Well get through it. Stuart they are, david. Dow industrials with a gain of 42 points. That is not the focus. The focus sheer misery for fellow americans getting hit in the carolinas hit now with florence. More on this in a moment. 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Before the eye came we were getting battered by winds on this side. Now that were on the opposite side of the eye, winds blowing in opposite direction. That is not good for this beachfront town because it is actually blowing water inland. Looking out we saw water coming up to the dunes and right up to the sea oats. So city officials keep a nervous eye on that and see what happens to the beach. Let me give you a quick assessment what is going on here. You can see the Banks Channel bridge, no traffic whatsoever heading to Harbor Island and on to the main land. It is still too dangerous to allow traffic back in. Panning over to these houses, the fifth house on the right, you can see some roofing material flapping in the wind but so far were mostly seeing superficial damage, not major structural damage, and hopefully, that holds true as we weather the back half of this storm. Stuart, back to you. Stuart Jonathan Serrie, talking about wind damage there. Move on to janice dean in the Weather Center. I think well be talking now about rainfall because i want to know how long florence will hang around in carolinas. What do you have for us, janice. Several days, not only tomorrow but certainly sunday. We have a category one storm. The center the storm is now on schorr so well start to sea weakening. I dont want you to Pay Attention to the winds because it will be a rainfall surge event over the next six to 12 hours. There is the landfall at wrightsville beach, we saw Jonathan Serrie getting back side of this storm. Still eking wind gusts 60, 70 miles an hour. We had a wind gust of 110 miles an hour in wilmington, North Carolina. Here are some. Wind gusts. 106 in cape lookout. Wilmington, 105. A wind story is certainly part of it but the legacy is going to be the rain and the surge. That will be on going. Make mention we have thornado threat. Tornado warn in and around skinnersville area and plymouth. Because of landfalling systems, motion with land, upper level winds, could see potential for weak tornadoes causing structural damage. Flash flooding is occurring right now. It will continue to do so across portions of North Carolina and South Carolina. Already Atlantic Beach reporting 30 inches of rain, 30 inches already. We are still predicting upwards of 10 to 20 inches on top of what weve already seen, stuart. We could potentially see still potential for seven to 11foot storm urge and reports over 10 feet in new bern where are still waiting to be rescued this morning. Stuart janice, reminds me of the texas hurricane of not too long ago. Harvey. Absolutely. This will be North Carolinas harvey, absolutely. Stuart 30 inches of rain in Atlantic Beach. Thank you very much, janice. Sterling work. The story of the day is the hurricane. Dow industrials up 27 points. More on the hurricane where it is going and what it is doing after this. 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Its proven quality sleep. Stuart its ten a clock in new york and the carolinas being better right now by Hurricane Florence. Hundreds rescued in new bern, north kalina. That rescue operation is still underway. We talked to the head of the cage and maybe a little later this hour. Theyre helping with this rescue effort. Also Tornado Warnings across the carolinas. We show you whats happening on the ground and give you a forecast of whats in store and what is coming. As for the market is very much a secondary story of the day. Its been open for 30 minutes and were up just 25 points, that is it. Second hour of varney co. Starts out. Half an hour ago we checked in with jeff locke and Carolina Beach, North Carolina. At the time he was in the eye of the storm and was all calm. Come in jeff because i take it you have changed. Go ahead, jeff. Reporter nice while it lasted. It was a long eye because the thing is moving so slow. Perhaps you can tell now we are out of the eye and now back into rain and breeze again. I suspect it will pick up more as we go. Back up our gear before we take you out to the beach to see the search. Maybe well do that next hour right now the eye has passed and were getting as we predicted, the wind coming this way off the atlantic which is behind us and now that subjects us to search. We see where that goes in the next hour. Stuart jeff, thank you. In wilmington, North Carolina chief of police is with us, ralph, joins us from the phone. Chief, you say the area will see floods of biblical proportions, explain please spin it yes, well presently right now we got a streets blocked and power lines down and trees down and Traffic Signals down. Many streets are impassable. The north side of the storm is just starting to hit us and thats when we get the most rain they are predicting total 2430 inches of rain. We wont be able to absorb that here. Stuart im not sure anywhere could absorb that kind of but what how many inches of water have you got on the ground now . I really dont have a number. Its been raining really hard for a good whole day. Im guessing in the 12 or 14inch rain but i am just guessing. Stuart how many people stayed in wilmington . Theres a sizable amount of folks who are still here. We are asking them to do not get on the road. The roads are impassable for the most part. Two, power lines are down. Call duke energy and report them because it will be without power for a long time here until we get back up. Stuart if you got a lot of people still in wilmington and youre expecting maybe 2 feet of rain still to come, you will not be able to rescue people who may well be in need, are you . Theyre pretty much on his own at this point. Thats true. Our response capability is in the height of the storm, north side of the storm, will be limited. You are an have to take care of yourselves until this thing passes. Stuart do have your Police Officers on the streets or are they inside at this point . When the eye was over us we did additional initial Damage Assessment and other locations around the city. Presently, they are still out there but as the winds continue to pick up that will be a slow process of withdrawal but we will still be around. Stuart ralph, you are calling and looking for flooding of biblical proportions. There is a quote that will live for a long time but ralph, thank you for joining us. We hope you come out of this okay and the people of wilmington, to. Thank you. Stuart now the question is and there are lots of questions here of course, will this have a Significant Impact on the overall economy. My opinion is shortterm, pretty bad, a lot of disruption. Longerterm, not so bad because there will be rebuilding. Lets see what david thinks of that. That is my opinion. What is yours . I dont agree but i want to explain. I think. Stuart you dont agree with me . How the times do i say that . Stuart frequently. No i do not. Long term it may be better to have a rebuild from distraction why would we wait for a hurricane or go create our own distraction so we can have the wonderful process of rebuilding but what it omits is in the longterm redeploying assets and resources into rebuilding and repair but taking those resources from some other part of economic use that we would rather have deployed them too. The more efficient allocation of capital would never be what we would do based on a hurricane because a hurricane is an awful thing any disaster. Ideally we would rather capital be allocated to the most organic and natural profitseeking use. To have to deploy it to go into other activities is what you have to do because of human Living Conditions and things but its not good for an economy. Thats what the policy often is where people think this good be turned into an opportunity but i dont want to be [inaudible] either. Look at gdp after katrina which at this point, larger than what this has and other hurricanes over the years. Huge Regional Economic impact, never national. Never has been. Stuart okay. What about the question . If the real estate along the coast is fiercely damaged and they are in the store path now and have been in the past, should be rebuilt and if we do rebuild . My friend tammy will agree with me on this answer. When you say we you mean american people. Or do you mean the federal taxpayers . You have to go back to Grover Cleveland who said i will not use federal funds to bail out things during disaster. Politically its impossible to be able to resist and i understand it and sensitive to it but this president will not say no and present bush did not and obama did not. Ideally we should meaning the Community Meeting private enterprise and Many Charities and churches in the natural source of what has always made america good and great and to take from, for small, federal government has negative 21 trillion but that is what will happen. It is somewhat academic. Morally, the federal taxpayer is not to be pain but morally we as american citizens should. Stuart and somebody will. Absolutely. By the way, the more efficient use of cleanup will come from the private sector anyway. Stuart that is true. I just feel that there will be a lot more money spent. I take your point about those resources being taken from somewhere else and deployed in the carolinas and orchard. I got it. Stuart President Trump is not reading Grover Cleveland. Stuart probably not. [laughter] to have on the phone we do . Alvin, im not sure the pronunciation [inaudible]. Thank you, alvin. Emergency Disaster Services director. Alvin your organization supplies all types of physical goods to people who are affected by florence. Are you running out of supplies at this point . Not at all. We been staging up for this operation and set in charlotte, north salina gathering up forces. We are uniquely positioned to help those and disaster volunteers to deploy and preparing and providing food and hydration and clean up kids and hygiene supplies and more portly emotional and spiritual. Stuart thats the point. The Salvation Army is to provide for those who are just leaning of physical things that they need but i know you better as someone who provides spiritual assistance and thats what youre doing here, isnt it . Stuart budget. Absolutely. We want to meet the physical needs first but then we want to be able to listen and hear what they need to provide those services as soon as possible. Stuart heavy deploy people to the area specifically and deliberately . We are in the area and we have units churches in the affected area and staff that remained in place to see if there was any immediate need they could serve but we also have a team staging in charlotte and 25 mobile units and teams that are attached to those units and we can get to the roads and down into the wilmington area. Stuart open, we appreciate you being with us and what youre doing for the community down there. God bless you. Thank you. Stuart check out what weve taken out in new bern, North Carolina. Will you look at that. Look at that water and that search came subtly. This is inside someones garage. Totally flooded. The emergency authorities were flooded out in the water and their Emergency Center but they had to send fema people out to rescue other people in new bern. They rescued over 100 people already and still other people who need to be rescued. Look at that. That is frightening indeed. That is someones garage. Florence now make its way to the west albeit very slowly and expected hit columbia, fulcher liner tomorrow in that city already has problems. We talk to the mayor of columbia and what he is expecting and how is preparing. Remember this, cajun army, cajun navy, saving people and Hurricane Harvey last year in houston. They sent a thousand members north to help with florence. Well find out what theyre doing there. We are all over the store. This is for a stay on varney co. Stuart whatever rally has gone but the dow is up, threepoint, twopoint, zero. Its about to turn there you go. We cut it at that moment but dont just a fraction and a way to go. Want to bring back trish jenkins. Hes in North Carolina it looks like youre in the thick of it. Tell us what you see. Reporter we are getting rain here and we are in Morehead City just in front inside of the island Atlantic Beach and ive been on here since 2 00 a. M. Getting whipped around and we went over to Atlantic Beach and here as well. Were getting a lot of wind damage and getting surge from the ocean and if you look there at the veracity of the waves of the water coming up there is a real thing in the condo we are along the seawall and this is the capital of the industry of norcal in a you go about login and is the main thoroughfare in highway 70 and connects all the way to new bern where they have the flooding but we saw power lines and businesses destroyed and saw trees snapped block after block and gas stations that were entirely flat. That means that once the stops in. For many more hours you have an unbelievably difficult time for First Responders to get in here for Law Enforcement to round out and contact with the the fire chiefs of the beach and the authorities here as well as the authorities of new bern and jacksonville everybody is having unbelievable challenges because of the hurdles they are facing from an extended water. The wind is fierce and causing unbelievable damage along highway 70 and im looking at a street parallel and it is under about a foot of water caused by the storm surge and, as you can see, the wind is not stopping. As we drove over to Atlantic Beach you saw the oceana peer, built in 1959 and it ripped apart. We went in and took images of the trees and businesses destroyed but there were new businesses and new trees and power lines down when we came back. Its a situation that if you can imagine is continuing to deteriorate we dont even know necessarily how long more we have to go but we are certain because of the size of florence it will be several more hours and for anybody that is that thinks its only a two coming on as a one, it will wreak real habit and a storm to be remembered in North Carolinas history when it finally over. The water damage will cause flooding for weeks and you have the river and its funny right now in new bern, 45 miles northwest of here and that river runs all the way into the south along with the Newport River and several others and is quite a catastrophic situation is still lifethreatening. Stuart griff jacob, take cover please. We ask her if to set the scene and show us what it is like in the middle of this hurricane and i think he did a good job. Get out of the way, growth and dry off. I was so you columbia, doctor lena and that is where it is and can i show the actual city . Well, columbia is about two and half hours from the coast and flooding is a big concern even there and even inland. Come on in, stephen benjamin, the mayor of club you. Have you seen any flooding yet . No, sir. Not just yet. We are expecting of course unprecedented rainstorms over the next several days. Usually, anything is possible and were doing everything we can to prepare for and mitigate the effect it has on people and their property. Stuart it looks like you not got rain at all, is the right . Yeah, you expect the wind to kick up heavily today in the rain to start tomorrow and initially we expect heavy rain storms on saturday and sunday and then going into monday a bit lighter. The storm with florence changes almost every single hours over. For any eventuality. All things humans can do to prepare for it and hope and pray for the best we want your honor, do you advise the people of columbia to exit and to leave and to get out and was there any kind of order to decorate . No, governor evacuated the coast and we are recipient counties. We converted our schools into shelters for several of our brothers and sisters in other parts of the state and spend time in our shelters two nights ago and spent time for games with the children and checking on our seniors there. We are receiving people but not to be evacuated. Right now obviously is a great environment and we are brothers and Sisters Keepers here in the city but hopefully if things do not get that tire here in the midland of doctor lena that we ever have to see evaluation order. Stuart it could, i guess, you are looking at serious flooding in columbia South Carolina. I take it you got some kind of electrician plan . Sure. Absolutely. We learned a great deal in 2013 after hurricane walking. It was a Tropical Storm at the time but it had 541 worlds washout because the state and totally dollars in damage and lost 19 precious lives. The lessons we learned in terms of Disaster Preparedness are incredible. Obviously, experience is very valuable teacher. You learn from it or you dont. We leverage those expenses to prepare even better working for us. Stuart your honor, thank you for joining us. Youre in a tough spot but youre facing. Stephen benjamin, mayor of columbia doctor lena. Florence has made landfall. It will move very slowly across the carolinas. We had to the Weather Center for in the storm track. vo hand can we talk . You know i miss playing catch with the. Grandkids and teaching them how to give a good handshake. Now look at me. Im all bent out of shape. vo tv if you have bent fingers and cant put your hand flat, talk to your doctor. It may be dupuytrens contracture. gary see ya hand youre all about friendly service, and you wont even shake hands . Come on vo your hand is talking. Isnt it time you listened . Learn more about dupuytrens contracture. At factsonhand. Com. The information could be quite handy. Designed to save you money. Wireless network even when youve got serious binging to do. Wherever your phone takes you, your wireless bill is about to cost a whole lot less. Use less data with a network that has the most wifi hotspots where you need them and the best 4g lte everywhere else. Saving you hundreds of dollars a year. And ask how you get Xfinity Mobile included with your internet. Plus, get 300 back when you buy a new smartphone. Xfinity mobile. Its simple. Easy. Awesome. Click, call or visit a store today. Stuart its time we went back to the Weather Center. Janice, quick question. Is there any chance that this storm bounces off the coast and goes back to see where it could strengthen again any chance of that. No but thats a valid question because two days ago there was the scenario of the storm making a quick landfall and moving southward and dipping in to the atlantic again and possibly strengthening. Its not a crazy question and that was out there in the computer model land a couple days go for now we expect the only problem is it will slow down. It will slow down and were going to see that influence of the ocean and all this moisture wrapping around the center of the storm. Were still going to see energy coming off the ocean because of its slow movement and potential for heavy rain. Also, the search for tornadoes. We seen them all morning long, north and west of plymouth in a couple Tornado Warning storms. These were not be destructive tornadoes and they could cause structural damage. Also, flash flooding will be a concern, not only today but tomorrow as the slow movement is going to enhance the rainfall and weve already received over 30 inches of rain in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. Already close to surpassing what was predicted from the storm once it made landfall. Stuart looking at jacksonville, North Carolina with 12 inches of rain. Surf city, North Carolina 14 inches of rain. This is in the very early stag stages. Janice this is part two and we could easily see rainfall totals that look close to what we saw during Hurricane Harvey. Stuart janice, good work as usual. Thank you very much. Look at this, can be at a gas station blown off or blown away last night in North Carolina. Eventually dragged across the parking lot. Look at ago. Well talk to the person who took the video very shortly. On. This is rain in new bern. Florence expected to dump eight months worth of rain in twothree days. Bad news for crops in the carolinas. In a moment we talk to the largest peach farmer in the state. At fidelity, our online u. S. Equity trades are just 4. 95. So no matter what you trade, or where you trade, youll only pay 4. 95. Fidelity. Open an account today. Making my dreams a reality takes more than just investment advice. From insurance to savings to retirement, it takes someone with experience and knowledge who can help me build a complete plan. Brian, my certified financial planner™ professional, is committed to working in my best interest. I call it my comfortable future plan, and its all possible with a cfp® professional. Find your certified financial planner™ professional at letsmakeaplan. Org. Stuart dow industrials are up 13 points, 14 points as we speak. This is not a financial wall street kind of today, no, it is a hurricane day. So with that in mind lets go to myrtle beach, South Carolina, where Kristina Partsinevelos is standing by. Oh, kristina, the wind has clearly picked up. Reporter definitely, stuart, i just want to point out the situation right now. The streets are supposed to be evacuated. The wind has picked up, rain is coming down. Clearly you see the damage. This guy over here just got a flat tire. No time for the police to show up. Theyre already helping in a situation over here. He was being silly in the streets. So not wearing a shirt. As you can see the damage. Look at the awning right behind me. This is chinese restaurant. A chinese restaurant, completely destroyed. Regardless what restaurant. What were seeing, seeing bearcats, those massive vehicles, driving around, police bearcats, one of them yelled, oh, here we go, he yelled at me to get back in the car because he didnt realize i was reporter. Only reporters are standing out here in the rain to be sure giving you direct images. We will most likely then have cure few, 7 00 a. M. , were allowed out. But at 7 00 p. M. , they want everybody to stay indoors. But at this point, forget the curfew. Stay indoors because of the rain. Were expecting flash floods, torrential rain, that will come inland. That is what were moving in here. We have the ocean on the other side. One Police Officer yesterday stopped us and said you nice might actually be locked in. You wont be able to get out at all. You will get water from both ends. Jeff flock, still, in like further north, eye of the storm. But now you can clearly see the situation as changed. So, stuart, im going to throw it back to you. Definitely a change of scenery right now. Stuart we were intrigued at the gentleman with no shirt in the background. We thought for a moment he would come up to you. Reporter do you want me to ask him . Stuart sure. What is he doing . Reporter right you, youre naked and the audience wants to know this is fox business, and theyre watching, they want to know what is in your head to be outside in this weather right now, not wearing any clothes . Just being free and an american, man. Reporter okay. Because the audience, theyre is this really about, i want to become famous, i want to get on tv, go viral . Look ive already been viral. You look at hurricane headbanger. Reporter he is being polite. Being chivalrous. Stuart that is one of more interesting hurricane hits weve ever seen. Like the guy. Stuart lets get serious, devin ashton with us, she is the Event Coordinator at the hilton head resort at the dunes. Youre a wedding coordinator. You must have had a load of cancellations, devin . We did have cancellation this is week. We had one big wedding had to get canceled, hopefully rescheduling that later in the year. We arent getting full effects of the storm like wilmington, myrtle beach, Charleston Areas are getting but were seeing a big decline of people on the island due to the threat and uncertainty of the storm. Stuart dylan, were seeing nice pictures of your resort, taken obviously taken prior to the arrival of florence. I take it you get lashed with heavy rain and wind at your location, is that correct . Right now, were actually not seeing anything as of yet. So i mean that is not to say it is going to change later but for the past few days, it has been sunny, so it is a little bit deceiving for everybody here on our end. Stuart can i ask you how many weddings have you canceled this weekend . So far we have only one cancellation. We have other events, like golf, dinners, restaurants on the resort. So those have been closed or have limited hours. And of course people arent doing all the outdoor activities, but as for large events weve been lucky only having one but we have two larger events coming up in this weeks. Stuart i got to say i feel bad for the bride and groom canceled by florence. Deaf have been ashton, thanks for joining us. Thank you. Stuart change of pace. An opinion headline from the Washington Post. Here it is. Opinion, Climate Change wrought this freak of nature. Who better to address that and then tammy bruce. Let me explain a little bit here. Yes. Stuart the writer of that oped piece says florence is a bad storm, turned into a monster by Climate Change. And your response . Well there has been storms in the past that have been worse, right . Like 1952. Gloria. Susan hazel. Hazel one of my favorite Shows Growing up. You remember her . Bottom line series of storms been worse historically. Of course if you didnt live through them, you wouldnt necessarily know that. But the thing about Climate Change is that it is so malleable. You can blame everything on it. It becomes an excuse. This is what is so great for the left if theyre not being any specifics regarding Climate Change. It adjusts itself. If its a bad storm. You say it is responsible for that. A few more storms not as big, it is responsible for that. Generally any bad weather, anything they want to apply to they can. Of course the goal is not even about the nature of the weather itself but the blaming of humanity, of the nature of what were doing, that were the problem. Of course that gives you an excuse then to control what people do, to control business, to control industry. Stuart gives you an excuse to blame trump. It allows to you do that too. Stuart the president pulled us out of the paris climate accord. It is all his fault. The Washington Post said that. One week you have him described as fourthgrader running crazy town but also powerful as god controlling the weather. I want to know which one it is. Stuart that was good, tammy. I want to know which one it is. I like kind of a sweet spot in the middle there where he is fabulous president , a man who knows what he is doing. Right there. Just so happens i have got pete hegseth sitting next to me. He is itching to go with this one. Im also with shirtless guy. I want freedom and i want america. That is all i really want. And viral. Viral at the same time. Stuart wait a minute. Lets get real here. The shirtless guy, he was putting other people in danger have to go in and rescue him. He was putting himself in danger. Americans should have the right to be stupid if they want to be, that is what he is doing. To tammy is totally write. You know what it was before. Global cooling then global cooling, global warming, they couldnt figure out what it was. They scrapped them both. They went with global Climate Change. About it is hot or cold. She got to the key point. When Climate Change is your religion, nothing else matters. You want to control everything else. This president said i dont want to control you. I want to unleash you and give businesses and individuals the ability to flourish and thrive. Yet the left will not skip any single moment to condemn this president. In this case its a hurricane. Washington post is doing it again. Stuart if the slightest thing goes wrong with the cleanup and or the rescue ashley ready to pounce. Stuart trumps fault, guaranteed. Because the left is looking for anything that can possibly go wrong to link florence with disaster and trump. He knows that. The white house knows it. They want to do the right thing for the right reason. A slipup will be blamed on them 10 times over. Stuart trump is not responsible for what youre seeing on your screens right now. I dont care what you say. Last word . They were blaming trump for whatever florence would do days before it hit. And so they now have this narrative, they know what theyre going to do. It proves, it doesnt matter what actually happens, and they, you know, said ahead of time, what the problem was going to be how it was his fault regardless. This proves it is a political narrative. It has nothing to do, look this is affecting everyones lives. It is dangerous. You know, it is a life and death dynamic. The left sees this as opportunity. They get excited with the potential of victimhood. Conservatives, this president , we look and how can we stop the problems from happening, how can we mitigate issues, help people in the meantime, that is what president of the United States is focused on. Stuart got it. Were out of time. That was good stuff. Welldone, hegseth, tammy bruce. We solved the problem. Stuart indeed. Now hurricane, florence is having an impact on agriculture. On the phone with us now the owner of titan farms. Now, you are a peach and pepper farmer, if im not mistaken. Ashley nice. Thats correct, stuart. Peaches and vegetables, mabel pepper and broccoli. Stuart is the crop that you have under, going to be destroyed . Is it under threat . Right now, the way were looking storm tracking through the middle of the state in South Carolina on saturday, we have quite a bit of possibility losing crops in the manning area. The eye of the storm is supposed to go across one of our farms in cable, South Carolina f that happens with the bell pepper crop, well probably lose that crop. Stuart bell peppers this is their time, this is prime time for bell peppers . We grow two season. We have 400acres in the fall. We started picking first 50 acres actually two days ago. Our crops are at most vulnerable stage right now. Stuart is there no thing forking a cultural crops, is there. There is agricultural insurance, most all farmers take care of that but in this case of 100 loss, Crop Insurance will not recover our expenses at this point. Stuart sorry to hear that, sir but what about your peach crop . That is not in . It is not harvestable yet, is it . Peach season ended for the year. But our biggest challenge there would be flooding. Peaches do not like standing water. We could get quite a bit of tree loss if theyre standing in water or with saturated soils and high winds we experienced trees blown overkilled from that were wishing the best to all the farmers. We buttoned down the hatches expecting the worse but praying for the best. Stuart have you seen in this area before where your farm is . Yes we have. 2015 South Carolina went through, most people dont realize we went through the storm of the century, a front came in straight off the coast, dumped 22 inches in one day on same particular farm. Forecast is 10 to 12inches in manning and six to 10 inches in our area. We hope it will weaken and move on as quickly as it can. Stuart you came back from the storm in 2015. Taken a while to recover from it. Yes, we did come back. Farmers are optimistic. We keep on plugging away. Stuart were really sad to hear this the idea of crops being ruined without insurance, really, that is real bad news. Chalmers, thank you very much for being on the air with us this morn. We appreciate it. We appreciate for all the farmers in North Carolina going through this right now. Ashley good luck. Stuart thanks for being here. Thank for being here, sir. See you soon. Good luck. Next hour, in the 11 00 hour, turkey, cotton, Sweet Potatoes, hogs come from North Carolina and this hurricane potentially has a real negative impact on all of those crops this harvest season. Well talk to the head of the states farm bureau shortly. Remember this, the cajun navy rescuing people during Hurricane Harvey in houston last year. Now setting up camp in the carolinas to help. Well find out how many members they have sent up there, and how many they saved so far. The cajun navy is here. Ashley in the last hour lieutenantgeneral todd simini gave us an update on the steps being taken in the face of Hurricane Florence. Well, stuart, the main thing is, its not the corps but everybody in the department of defense pulling together and i think the most important thing i want to stress to you, i was in the pentagon yesterday afternoon with general oshaughnessy. Here is the northcom commander, he had all the leaders from the army, the navy, the air force and the marines and continued to stress how significant secretary of defense, secretary mattis wants us all leaning forward, anticipate where those requirements are, be prepared to make sure were getting those on the ground as fast as possible. Stuart well tell you whats going on wall street, but it is not the big story of the day, far from it. So you have got a modest rally going on. The 10year treasury crossed the 3 yield mark earlier. It has backed off. Now 2. 99 . The cajun navy, remember them . Volunteer organization descends on the carolinas to help those affected by Hurricane Florence. On the phone with us now is shaun boudreaux, Cajun Navy Relief president. Welcome back. Good to see you again, sir. How are you doing . Excellent. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Stuart how many people do you have drafted in the carolinas . Right now our rosters keep growing by the minute. As the situation evolves were keeping track who is available when and where. Some people are taking interest in taking care of personal family first but rosters keep growing. 80 was the last count we had of people ready to be in action right now but the number is going up to hundreds and hundreds. Stuart i remember you from louisiana and texas. Are you, do you have a convoy of some sort going from the, louis and texas over to the carolinas . We do have some folks willing to take their personal equipment that far which we appreciate but i think the real strength of what were trying to accomplish to utilize local assets, people who live local to the disaster are able to help their neighbors. That is the philosophy. That is what we want to embrace. That way we dont have to stuart sounds like youre setting up almost a permanent operation, a Permanent Organization that springs into action when you have this kind of flooding or Natural Disaster . Of course. That is what it is about, to help your neighbors. Stuart how many people have you rescued so far . Right now, our numbers, with area were staged right now we dont have as many rescues. Were doing backing operations, path finding, supporting ourselves for a large flood headed through areas weve seen in the past. Other cajun navy groups out there have been on the coastline right where it hit. I know they have been in action. I dont have numbers from them. From where we are, were preparing for quite a flood, something unseen never before. Stuart sounds almost like a military operation that youre mounting here. It kind of is. It just really falls in line with that. If you understand incident command and how to respond to disaster you can play into the framework used by fema and everybody else. Doesnt mean were trying to be fema. Were trying to speak the same language and be with them. Stuart so youre planning for a major flood because this hurricane is hovering over the carolinas, and just dumping probably feet of rain . Youre planning for that . Yes. We did the same in Hurricane Matthew in 2016. We headed to this area back then. We are familiar with some of the area. We know what happened at that time. This will be more rainfall as then. The situation is dynamic. Well see how it changes over time but we do anticipate it will be a floodbased situation. Stuart you are supported by charitable donations from individuals . You dont take any government money, nothing like that . No, sir, were not interested in this. A lot of us do it out of the kindness of our charts. The charity were looking for buy high water vehicles for organization. As part of the organization, leaders taking their personal time and money to do this. I will try to reimburse gas according to federal standards as a nonprofit. We have rules we have to follow by. I want to do what i can to help the people operate. Were not looking to make money. Nobody is paid. Stuart shaun boudreaux, cajun navify. Im sure well see you again. Appreciate it. Stuart we like to show you this map, tell you exactly where it is. Made landfall this morning on wrightsville beach. Ashley not moved a whole lot. Stuart it is sitting there. The it is real bad news. It is raining like crazy over that entire area. Well be back with more. You shouldnt be rushed into booking a hotel. With expedias addon advantage, booking a flight unlocks discounts on select hotels until the day you leave for your trip. Addon advantage. Only when you book with expedia. Addon advantage. On the go and want to rent a movie . Showtime. Or buy the hottest shows. Even here . Weve got you covered. Now they are all yours. To take on the go. On any screen. Bingo alright and watch whatever you buy. Wherever you are. Head to xfinity. Com stream to start watching. Simple to rent, easy to buy, awesome to go. Stuart ceo tim cook has been tweeting about the storm. Here it is. The carolinas are in our hearts. To you are employees there, firstresponders, everyone in the hurricanes path, please stay safe. To help those affected apple is donating one Million Dollars to the red cross. Cook graduated from dukes Business School in durham with an mba in 1988. He remains a fan of dukes basketball team. Again, North Carolina is where it i located. That is duke for you. Okay. What have we got now . Check with Jonathan Serrie still on the balcony in wrightsville beach, but conditions look to be much worse, jonathan. Reporter yeah, stuart. Were looking at the back half of the storm right now, after going through the eye, the extreme calm of the eye, we were then battered by winds heading in the opposite direction. Water in from the ocean. City officials keeping nervous eye on the beach. There is utility poll rocking back and forth. When the storm first hit, overnight, around 1 30 a. M. , we lost power. We came outside. We saw green flashes where transformers were blowing up, being hit bit heavy winds and knocking out power to most of the island. Out of an abundance of caution, the city has shut down its public water system. There is no Running Water on the island in addition to the electrical outages. City officials conducted a preliminary assessment of the damage. Theyre not seeing a lot of major structural damage but they are seeing scattered damage to roofs and siding and relatively minor damage. I say relatively minor damage, when youre looking at the big picture, if youre a homeowner, a business owner, what a headache to come back to. Of course that is not going to happen anytime soon. I know people are anxious to get back to the island but with conditions like this, police are still keeping people off the island. Those who evacuated, theyre not allowing anyone out on to the streets until conditions improve. Back to you. Stuart Jonathan Serrie, thank you very much indeed. Jonathan just said what a headache. It occurs to me 10 million of our fellow americans are in for a dreadful headache this morning. Can you imagine . Youre not in your own home. You might not have power. You probably cant get to a hot meal. You dont know when you can get back or what kind of damage is your house. What matters is family. Groups like samaritans purse on the ground as well. In carolinas, you are living in one of the beautiful places in the world and generally prepared but you ashley getting reports of the Pamlico River is over its banks, flooding entire neighborhoods. Highway 264 is cut off. As water comes down, rivers are rising. This is a slow motion catastrophe. Stuart yes it is. Well have more on the storm and little bit from wall street after this. Why are drivers 50 and over switching to the aarp Auto Insurance program from the hartford . Lets hear what actual customers are saying. The hartfords integrity is something thats very important to us folks over 50. We like talking to real people and getting the straight answers when we ask questions, and theyve done a wonderful job doing that. [matt] in fact, the hartfords been named one of the worlds most Ethical Companies ten times. I get the highest levels of coverage, i get the highest levels of service, low premiums, but when it comes time to deliver the hartfords been there and thats what values about for me. [matt] only the hartford offers lifetime renewability. Its their promise not to drop you, even if youre in an accident. Its a great feeling to know that the hartford will not drop me because of an accident. And i dont have to worry, because a company thats been in business for 200 years must be doing something right. [announcer] to find out more about the aarp Auto Insurance program from the hartford, call the hartford at. Or go to. You could save hundreds of dollars when you switch. [matt] did you know that the hartford is the only national car Insurance Program endorsed by aarp . In fact, theyve been working together for over 30 years. Not an aarp member . The hartford can help you join in minutes. You have a lot of companies that just try to be a mill, to get a whole of business. But to have somebody that still has that personal touch, that takes time out to talk to you, i think thats really important. [matt] see for yourself why customers rate the hartford 4. 8 out of five stars for their claims experience. [announcer] to learn more about the aarp Auto Insurance program from the hartford, call the hartford at. For a free quote, thats. Or go to. Stuart good morn, everyone, 11 00 on the east coast. Big story of the day, Hurricane Florence, it made landfall at around 7 15 this morning as a category 1 storm. The bigger issue, not so much wind but flooding. The storm is moving slowly across the carolinas. Some areas could have up to 40 inches of rain. Does that remind you of harvey in texas . The storm surge has already reached nine to 10 feet. Power outages, big concern. About a half million customers in North Carolina are without power as of now. Of course were watching the markets for you. Look at the big board. Not much movement. We have a gain of 28 points for the dow industrials. The third hour of Varney Company starts now. Stuart right from the get go, lets go to jeff flock in Carolina Beach in North Carolina. Looks like he is in the thick of it, what is going on, jeff . Reporter as promised, back half of the storm, stuart. You saw part of the eye. That is great. But were now on the other side of the storm and weve got this wind coming right down the beach right now. Eventually it is going to start to drive that water in. Were already, were at high tide now and were not breaching anything. That is good news. But as you can see the waves behind me pretty angry. I can try to take a stroll down to the beach if i can, to get a sense of it, but if you go down there you wind up getting sandblasted. It is not a wind event, absolutely true. However, it is not to say that there isnt wind because there absolutely is. Is there still Hurricane Force winds . Were that close to the center of circulation. Getting a lot of sand down here blowing down the beach. Obviously beach erosion. Thats probably the least of anybodys worries at this point unless they erode the berms enough to cause overwash. We also have flooding in town already that is coming around back the other way as all the water was pushing in there. Well continue to watch the surge though. It is coming pretty good right now, stuart. Stuart welldone, jeff. We wanted you to show people what it is like to be in the middle of a storm like that. You did a great job. Well get back to you very shortly. On the phone with us now, gene hodges, Craven County, North Carolina, assistant county manager. Gene, your county includes new bern and we were told earlier this morning there was serious flooding in that town and there was a rescue of over 100 people underway. Is the rescue still going on . Yes, sir. We still have quite a number of people that are actively trying to be rescued. It is north of 100. We have effected over 100 rescues already. Were doing everything we can to help these folks. We have five swiftwater rescue teams out working right now. Stuart sir, i will show video that was taken in new bern i. It is inside someones garage or outside of it, what were seeing now, we can see an absolute surge of water. I cant tell how high it is but looks to being several feet. It sudden, swamp right over you, is that what happened . Yes, sir. It came very quickly especially as the tide got high with the 11 30 p. M. Time growing to 12 00 a. M. We saw areas up to three to four feet easily inside of a building. Stuart came right back at you, all of sudden, including in the Emergency Center i believe . We had some water come into the basement of our Emergency Center. Were fully operational. Were still conducting business. Stuart some. People who are being rescued, should they have evacuated . Were they told to evacuate . Yes, sir. We actually had a mandatory evacuation in place. Weve been under voluntary evacuation since Tuesday Morning. Tuesday at 2 00 p. M. We implemented a mandatory evacuation. Wednesday we had a Mass Evacuation project where we actually moved over 107 people to an inland shelter outside of this county. Stuart why did they stay . I guess weve got folks that feel like they want to ride the storm out. A lot of folks their home is their castle. They dont feel like theyre abandoning it. Stuart how do you feel putting your own life at risk to go rescue them. Its a job. The job we do. Were hear to help people. Were here to help everybody. That is what we get paid to do. Were proud to do what we do to make pitcairn county a great place. Stuart were proud of what you do. Sure thing. Stuart bring in now fox news strategic analyst, general jack keane, strategic analyst . Sounds pretty good, doesnt it. Stuart not a bad title. Fourstar general was better. What will the military do about all this . What is your role here . First of all, if there was, a storm hit someplace in the world, where there was high concentration of military troops, this is it. There is no other place in america and no other place in the world from florida, all the way to virginia. There is over a dozen military bases. There is hundreds of thousands of troops involved on that coastline there. I commanded fort bragg, North Carolina, 45,000 troops right there in North Carolina, camp lejeune, pretty close themselves. So theres the capacity that dod has available is really significant. All that said, major lesson from katrina, remember the storm and wind hit, the flooding was the problem . We did not activate those troops on active duty that were in the vicinity fast enough. Major lesson learned. And they had capacity. General mattis has already told all of his commanders, stand by. If your communities need help, go give them that help. You doesnt have to ask permission. Go do it. Stuart there is no evacuation involved here . Those guys they moved helicopters out like i did when i was at fort bragg, move them away, the hangars cannot sustain level of wind. That will destroy that equipment. That will come back very quickly. National guard has been alerted in every one of the states. We have two amphibious ships sailed out of norfolk and behind the storm. Theyre following the storm into the coastline. As that storm moves inward, they will tuck right into the coastline. They have helicopters for rescue. They have 800 marines standing by right there behind the storm. Stuart that is really pretty good, i got to say. If i need help, i want to be in the carolinas to have you guys at my back. Thats good. The military knows how to win wars. We should be able to know how to help people in storm. Stuart i hope you can stay for the hour. Im hanging around. The strategic analyst will stand by. Stuart strategic analyst, stand by. Thank you, sir. Jonathan hoenig the man from the capitalist pig hedge fund. Lets talk about the Financial Impact of this hurricane of the first of all, what about Flood Insurance . You cant get Flood Insurance with just your homeowners policy. You have to go to the government to get it. That means a lot of people will get hurt and they dont have any recourse through insurance. Thats not good. Stuart. Every time there is these types of natural dissass test, first of course any human cost, loss of life that is most important but youre right, there is Economic Cost here. This is 6 , the area covered by the storm is 6 of national gds. Most of these people, if they have insurance have national Flood Insurance. This is another area which the government has, essentially form ad monopoly. Only started back in the 1960s. This is governmentprovided Flood Insurance program, stuart. It is 24 billion in the hole. It amounts to a subsidy for people to live in very dangerous area paid for by everyone else. Stuart you dont approve of that, do you . You dont approve taxpayer money subsidizing people taking a risk living on the coast . Especially, stuart, modern Financial Engineering made that risk palatable. Well see hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, yet insurance stocks today, like general re or allstate or progressive, those Stocks Holding up quite well. Previous years, 100 years ago they might have gone out of business on news. The insurance markets, our economy has tremendous way of transferring risk, managing risk. That boils down to individual homeowners as well. They should buy their insurance policies. A little bit off color to talk about in midst of an evacuation but these are serious Economic Issues and there will be a lot of destruction as a result of this storm. Stuart there is. Jonathan, sorry to cut this short. I have breaking news i have to deal with. Jonathan hoenig, thanks for joining us. See you again soon. Here is the breaking news, Brett Kavanaugh releasing a statement on allegations of Sexual Misconduct which go all the way back to his high school years. Here is the quote. I cat goreally and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at anytime. Anymore news on that story you will get it right here. It concern as letter published or just surfaced yesterday by die nan feinstein, senator feinstein, threw a Monkey Wrench through the whole works. Brett kavanaugh is trying to clear it up. A live look at wrightsville beach, North Carolina. Coming up next janice dean gives us a a range on the storms path and you will be shocked when you see the rainfall totals. We talked to mayor of hilton head, South Carolina. A lot of highend real estate in the storms path and some of those homeowners will be uninsured. Well be right back. Our new, hot, fresh breakfast will get you the readiest. buzzer sound holiday inn express. Be the readiest. Stuart come back in again please janice dean. Janice, would you please repeat those rainfall totals . Because i think that is the real drama at the moment. Go. Updated storm totals right here for you, stuart. 34 inches, close to 35 inches already in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. We were really expecting to see these rainfall totals so quickly but it just goes to show you the power of the storm in terms of the onshore flow and ocean influence of the center of that storm bringing potential for incredible amounts of rain and the fact that it is such a slowmoving storm and as long as this has a ocean connection well continue to see the threat for rain and storm surge as well as tornadoes. We actually had a tornado watch out for several hours and tornado storms in the Northeast Quadrant of this system. This is the landfall at 7 15. 90 mileanhour sustained winds. Here are some wind gusts weve seen over the last several hours, certainly its a wind story. Its a winddriven storm. The legacy will be much like harvey, we talked about Hurricane Harvey last year. In Southeast Texas. When the storm reached Southeast Texas it wasnt a hurricane. The category and winds certainly important, the legacy what they will remember the most out of this system is the incredible amounts of water that this storm dumped. Tornado watch again. The potential for that throughout the afternoon and evening hours and we could see the weak tornadoes that could bring structural damage on top of incredible amounts of rain. Flash flooding will be a concern, not only today but through the next couple days. The storm is moving west southwest as 3 miles an hour. That tells you how slow the system is moving. Has nothing to steer it, nothing to pick it up, move it north, until something does that, well continue to see these incredible rainfall totals this is additional rainfall and surge. Weve already seen upwards of 10 feet in new bern this morning where we have people that are still being rescued and need rescuing. We could see an additional seven to 11 feet of storm surge as the storm brings in the counterclockwise winds and ocean effect with the counterclockwise winds pulled onshore. The storm totals were incredible. It was 48inches were harvey and were already at 34 with this one. Stuart that is extraordinary. Janice, thank you very much indeed. Bad stuff. Hilton head, South Carolina where the mayor, David Bennett joins us on the phone. David, there is a lot of highend real estate in our town. A lot of it will be uninsured, am i right . Well, we actually benefit greatly from federal insurance and other forms of insurance, no, that would not be a correct statement. Stuart have you got any damage so far . We have been very fortunate this week, stuart. The forecast had improved dramatically for Hilton Head Island compared to what it was earlier in the week. At this point, pretty much every day in this week it has been sunny skies. Not to say that were not continuing a vigilant stance but for us well monitor the storm over the course of the next 36 hours. Stuart did many people leave and evacuate or did most people stay . Its a mix. We had a mandatory Evacuation Order in effect earlier this week. This was rescinded by governor mcmaster. I suspect a minority of the population took that as an opportunity to go and seek a safe every location, certainly the medical evacuation, removed a significant component of the population but by and large i would say the majority of the islanders have remained behind. Stuart all right, david, we wish you well. Good luck to you, sir. David bennett, mayor of Hilton Head Island. Thanks for joining us. General jack keane is with us and i want more information how many military people there are in the area. You told us about camp lejeune, 45,000 men and women . At fort bragg. Stuart what about the other camps . You have a huge concentration of military power already to go. Here are the bases that are right in the vicinity. Fort stewart, georgia, fort gordon, georgia, for the jackson, South Carolina, paris island which is Marine Corps Training base. Myrtle beach air force base. Fort bragg, North Carolina. Pope air force base. Camp lejeune, major marine corps base, North Carolina. Norfolk naval station. Not all of those have capacity to help but the truth is a lot of them. Stuart right. There are some bases outside of the area itself like fort campbell, kentucky, 25,000 soldiers there. There are fema assets there. There is other prepositioning. There are a small Mountain Range away. There is a lot of capacity here to back up what the governors are going to do with firstresponders, what they will do with national guard. This is a major, major flooding event where there is people who are in need of rescue like we had katrina, then these forces could come into play. Stuart could you bring helicopters . Absolutely. They have light boats and ramps they could put into play. Stuart secretary mattis said, just do it. Theres a process you have to go through like any bureaucracy. Dod has got it. You have to go through dod, fema, to the governor but, you know, there is a problem, i was commanding fort bragg. Fran was a hurricane that hit. It didnt go where it was supposed to go. It went right to raleigh, raleighdurham area, capital of North Carolina. I called the governor that morning. Governor, how much of a problem . We werent prepared for this thing. It was supposed to go up the coast. We have real problems. I had 4,000 troops there before supper. I just pushed them there. I didnt ask permission. I sent them. Then i told my chain of command what i was doing. There are provisions inside dod if the community is in trouble and it is an emergency situation you have full authority to deploy yours your troops. Stuart there you go. Thank you, general. Look at destruction that florence has wrought. This is north top sail. That is in North Carolina. The winds ripped apart that gas station. That is a bp station. You can see the big sign. Goes across the parking lot. I will talk to the man who shot that video in a moment. This is a live look at myrtle beach. A big travel destination in the southeast. Well check in with Kristina Partsinevelos on this one. Last time we talked to her, conditions were getting a lot worse. Well see what happens now. Well be back. As moms, we send our kids out into the world, full of hope. And we dont want Something Like meningitis b getting in their way. Meningococcal group b disease, or meningitis b, is real. Bexsero is a vaccine to help prevent meningitis b in 1025 year olds. 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To a zerotouch, onebox world. Optimizing performance and budget. Beyond having questions. To getting answers. Activecore, hows my network . All sites are green. All of which helps you do more than your customers thought possible. Comcast business. Beyond fast. Stuart on your screen, video of the bp gas station blown apart by florence. We have on the phone, chris collura, sky chaser. Com, who took video of that. Do you do this for a living . Yes. Yes i do. You doesnt sell us that video, did you . [laughter]. Stuart so where are you actually from . Because it sounds like you must have driven in deliberate hi to take good shots of the storm . I live down in south florida. I came up to North Carolina, to position myself on topsail beach, near the wilmington area. Stuart okay, what is the best, what is the best video that youre looking for . What do you want to see . What video do you want to capture . Well we want to capture the really strong winds and hopefully storm surge and trees coming down, signs blowing apart. We dont want to see anybody get hurt. We dont want to see that. We want to see, document, what these storms can do pretty much. Stuart skychaser. Com, do you operate as kind of a Warning Service . Look at this, dont go anywhere near it, Something Like that . Yeah, basically and just finding out what makes these storms so bad. Why this one weakened at the last minute before it came in. Why some are different. Stuart good stuff. Chris, i have to cut it short. Youre breaking in and out. We appreciate you and the video. Not a problem. My pleasure. Stuart which liked it. North carolina farms are going to get hit hard by florence. North carolina is where you get some of your turkey, corn, potatoes, a load of other crops. Ashley thanksgiving rundown. Stuart that is. Well talk to the president of the North Carolina farm bureau. We also have with us a guy whose home is in the path of the storm but he refuses to leave. He is going to tell us why. Stuart 11 30 on the east coast. Its a big day because of Hurricane Florence. You can see the storms track, lefthand side of the screen. Of course, we are watching the markets, where the dow has gained a little more ground. Now we are up 47 points. Lets get right back to the sto storm. Last time we saw you, you were just deluged with rain and blown away by wind and youre still there. What have you got now . Reporter hey, how long back . Stuart youre back. Can you hear me, Griff Jenkins . Can you hear me . I realize the rain is making a lot of noise. Can you hear me okay . He is not hearing me. He is actually asking our producers when am i coming back on the air. Thats what hes actually saying. Thats Live Television right there. Stuart trying to introduce him live right there. We have him back. All right. Whats going on right now . Reporter the reason why, if i come up here, we continue to get some really whipping winds, some of the harshest we have seen since 2 00 a. M. This morning when we first started. Its because that bay over here, we are parallel to Atlantic Beach. That bay is continuing to surge into the street and flood it. This street that i was showing you, that is parallel, about 100 yards of the street is highway 70, the main thoroughfare. Earlier when we drove our car down to Atlantic Beach, tree after tree after power line after power line, down, causing a major catastrophic situation, as well as storefronts, gas stations, storefronts having their roofs ripped off. It is quite an unbelievable impact that they are taking from the wind of this and the storm sur surge. If this continues to set in for several more hours, it will be an excessive rain problem, because you will have wind damage. First responders have trouble getting around, Law Enforcement having trouble to assess the damage and its going to keep getting wetter and wetter. Stuart thank you very much indeed. With weather like that, you can imagine the impact on a farm where the crops are about to be harvested. Florence will have a big impact on agriculture in North Carolina. Let me bring in larry wooden, chair of the farm bureau of North Carolina. Larry, we had on our program earlier a gentleman who farms red bell peppers. He said hes about to lose almost all of his crop. Would that be true of other crops in North Carolina like maybe tobacco, maybe Sweet Potatoes, corn, cotton, that kind of thing . Most definitely. This hurricane could not have come in at a worse time for agriculture in North Carolina. As our states largest industry, we are at the beginning of most of the harvest of our crops, certainly in the middle of some of our crops like tobacco. Tobacco thats left in the field with the winds you just heard will be completely almost either broken or stripped from the stalk, and so its going to be devastating. Agriculture will take the brunt of this hurricane in terms of economic losses. One good thing, our pork producers, we are the number two pork producing state in the nation. Our pork producers have done a magnificent job in preparing for this storm and bringing down the waste lagoons and having portable generators ready for bringing feed, keeping air and water to those animals, so theres a lot of that going on right now. I have talked all over eastern North Carolina, southeastern North Carolina, this morning and its going to be rough. Thats the heart of our agriculture and in particular, if this storm takes a turn up through western North Carolina, our states agriculture will be hammered in a very big way. Stuart i understand that agriculture is an 84 billion a year industry in North Carolina. Can you put just even a vague dollar number on the losses which you are looking at . Not certainly not at this time. Those crops of tobacco, soybeans, corn, Sweet Potatoes and cotton last year was worth about 2. 5 billion to our farmers. We dont know what the outcome is going to be. What was last years numbers. Certainly we will have to wait until the water goes down, the wind stops blowing here, and then make assessments next week, late next week. One of the real tragedies of this thing could be if this slowmoving hurricane just meanders and meanders through North Carolina, continues to dump inches and inches of torrential rain, it will only exacerbate an already bad situation for our farmers and farm families. Stuart i regret to say thats exactly whats happening right now. The storm is only moving at about three miles an hour. Its hovering and dumping a lot of rain. Larry, thank you very much for joining us on a very difficult day. Thank you again, sir. General jack keane still with us. I want to talk to you, general, about generators. You are telling me the military has available, has access to giant generators which will be needed in the aftermath of this flood. Yeah. The military and also fema will have it. Clearly we will have Power Outages, unfortunately, and it could possibly be massive. Stuart you have a half million out of power already. Yeah. As a result of that, when the storm settles a little bit, you will be able to move in major generators. The United States military dont deploy to the french riviera. We go some place thats in a desperate situation. We dont plug in anywhere so we go some place and we have to sustain thousands of troops that arrive every day and we have these massive generators that are a power source for everything that we do. The ability of command and control to run operation centers, we establish small improvised bases so those things are available. They can power a town easily. You can bring a few in and power a small city. Stuart they would be made available they could be made available. Fema has fema understands the power outage problem. They will be the ones that will control that. They have capability themselves. If it exceeds their capability, they will go to d. O. D. And say we need some help. Stuart i love these stories. A generator that can power a small town, quite a few of them. Most of us have small little generators. These are a little bit bigger. Stuart hold on a second. I want to bring in jeremy tominac, a resident of wilmington, North Carolina. You chose not to evacuate, you chose to ride out the storm. You happy with your decision . You got a big smile on your face. Yes, i am happy with my decision. Mainly because the house didnt collapse on top of me so thats always good, and also, because the few things that did happen to my home like the gutters came off and pieces of siding, i can go ahead and get that fixed. Stuart youre not out of the woods yet because this storm will dump a whole lot of rain on you. Youre not homefree at this point, are you . Well, no, i wouldnt say so. But still, im just trying to think positive and ride this thing out. Stuart have you any regrets that you decided to ride it out . No. Absolutely not. The whole point of it was for the aftermath of the storm, my rugby teammates and i, we call ourselves the clamdiggers, we are about to take up chainsaws and start going around town. Stuart ive got to tell you, we just had the mayor of wilmington on the show who was talking about floods coming of quote, biblical proportions. Last word to you. Well, so far, i havent seen any flooding. That remains to be seen for me. But well try not to let that stop us. There are people needing help. We will see what we can do for them. Stuart good luck to you. Thanks for getting in touch with us. We appreciate it. Right in the middle of it. Thank you. I want to go back to myrtle beach, South Carolina. Christina, give us the latest from where you are. Reporter i just moved a little bit further away from some of the flying debris so this area seems to be more intact, although you can see behind me they are not boarded up at all. Im still on ocean boulevard in myrtle beach. The latest we are hearing now are Power Outages that are happening across this entire county, 15,000 people without pow power. In South Carolina as a whole, we are seeing roughly 54,000 people that have lost their power. Of course, i know you had Griff Jenkins, another fox reporter, on before. The rain is worse where he is. Its still moving this way. The storm, the hurricane is moving slowly which means we will get torrential rain. There has been police cars patrolling back and forth. They told me so far there hasnt been anything major thats happened, luckily, which is what we want to hear. We dont want to hear any type of injuries or accidents or stuff like that. But as you can see right now, it seems like the wind comes and goes. We are expecting torrential rain and right now, our hotel is on two generators. Luckily, i filled up my bathtub with water and my sink as well. I was told thats the thing to do in a hurricane because remember, im a firsttimer. I will send it back to you. What we are seeing now is lack of power. Stuart you are doing all right for a first hurricane. You are doing very well. Just watch out. Reporter thank you. Thank you, stuart. Stuart eight months worth of rain falling down on the carolinas in two to three days. Eight months worth, compressed no a couple days. Deluging towns like Carolina Beach. We will talk to that mayor after this. Stuart earlier this morning we spoke to the commander of the u. S. Army corps of engineers and he says the military is prepared for florence. Take a listen. I think the main thing is that its not the corps, its everybody in department of defense pulling together and i think the most important thing i want to stress to you, i was in the pentagon yesterday afternoon with the northcom commander. He had all the leaders from the army, navy, air force and marines and continued to stress how significant the secretary of defense, secretary mattis, wants all of us leaning forward. Anticipate where the requirements are, then be prepared to be able to make sure we are getting those on the ground as fast as possible. Stuart back to the storm. Jonathan surrey, wrightsville beach, North Carolina, an update please. What are you seeing . Reporter yeah, we are seeing some changes. Now that the eye has passed over us and the wind has changed direction, we are starting to see our first street flooding here on this part of the island. As we zoom into this intersection, we can see what looks like maybe a couple of feet of water standing in this major intersection, just over the causeway over Banks Channel when you first get into the beach island portion of wrightsville beach. We saw several vehicles, what appeared to be official vehicles, try to navigate the flood waters and then apparently think otherwise, backing up and turning around. So this is the first flooding that we have seen in our section of this island, and one thing that is concerning folks on the island is this change in wind direction, that its no longer blowing out to sea. Instead, its blowing in towards the beach. So they are keeping a nervous watch on the crashing waves that are coming down on the beach. Beach erosion, of course, is a huge concern for the entire coast of North Carolina. The usgs has run a study suggesting that in this storm, 75 of North Carolinas beaches are going to suffer some sort of beach erosion as a result of this hurricane. As far as structural damage, were not seeing a lot of major damage. We are seeing some siding peeling off, some siding materials. We are seeing some roofing materials peeling off, and we are seeing some water. Were not seeing any broken windows yet, but we are seeing water leaching in through some of the windows on the side of the pounding wind, seemingly incessantly with the slow speed of this storm here. And as i said last time, when youre looking at it from the 35,000 foot level, these all seem like minor damages but when you are the specific homeowner, when you are the owner of this business, its a huge deal, especially when it may be days before you can get back on to the island to look after your property because of this slowmoving storm. Back to you. Stuart what a situation. Jonathan, thank you very much. Hurricane florence is now a category 1 storm, but its battering North Carolinas coast. Lets go to Carolina Beach, North Carolina. Joining us on the phone, the mayor of that town, joe benson. Joe, is anyone still there . Yes, sadly, stuart, yes. Naturally the Emergency Responders would be there in any kind of situation like this, fire department, emt, police department, we probably have 10 to 15 of the population that chose to ride it out against the Evacuation Order that we on council, myself, gave on monday evening. Stuart in your town right now, is there enough water to pose a threat to the people who stayed behind . Not yet. The last report i got, full disclosure, i got took off, heeded my own warning yesterday and drove up to greensboro but the last report i got about two hours ago suggested that flooding wasnt a major concern yet. But storm surge will be, stuart. A couple of high tide cycles, stronger winds to follow, our biggest concern then will be not just beach erosion. Thats a foregone conclusion now. But water heading over the dunes. Stuart of course. That is too late for people in your town, Carolina Beach, too late for them to get out, isnt it . It is, and thats the so just as Governor Cooper has done so well from the state down to the municipalities, we stressed the need to go for days leading up to this. We knew it would be significant, regardless of the category, we knew there would be dangerous impact and the mandatory curfew for evacuation, 8 00 p. M. Wednesday, if you stayed, youre on your own. Stuart they are on their own. Your honor, thanks for joining us this morning. Difficult situation for you but we appreciate you coming on our show. Thank you, sir. All morning long, we have been checking in with jeff flock. Hes in Carolina Beach, again, North Carolina. Next, we get one last look at how conditions are where he is. I promise we will be back. Making my dreams a reality takes more than just investment advice. 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I started my 401k early, i diversified. Im not a big spender. Sounds like youre doing a lot. But i still feel like im not gonna have enough for retirement. Like theres Something Else i should be doing. With the right conversation, you might find youre doing okay. So, no hot dog suit . Not unless you want to. No. Schedule a complimentary goal Planning Session today with td ameritrade®. Stuart moments ago, general jack keane, four star genere tired sitting next to me, gets a phone call. Whos on the phone . Mattis, as in defense secretary, secretary mattis, defense secretary. Hes still with us. He will tell us what the secretary wanted to say. He called into my show. What did he say . He just wanted to make certain that i understood all the things were doing, which i had mentioned. He said there are some other things that are going on as well. He said i have secondary forces that are outside the area, hes moving troops from the tenth Mountain Division into the area. He has people positioned at fort campbell, kentucky. Hes got some other ships other than the ones i mentioned and he said all a commander has to do, he said i got a twominute Approval Authority for them to deploy resources into any one of these areas. Thats my standard. He said they call in, in two minutes were going to know what theyre going to do and were going to give them an Approval Authority to deploy forces. Stuart to carve through the bureaucracy. In other words, there is no bureaucracy. He has eliminated it. Stuart thats extraordinary. By the way, on your screen now, that is new bern, North Carolina. Thats where the storm surge really hit and they have been engaged in a rescue operation with some people for some time, about 100 people rescued. General, one more go. Yeah. I got to mention the coast guard. Theyre not part of dod but they are part of the special brotherhood here. They will get involved here with air rescue and some water rescue as well. They have significant capability up and down the east coast. Stuart you made news. The military is really on top of it. Thank you, general. Lets go back to jeff flock. Hes on Carolina Beach, North Carolina. I guess youre right in the middle of the rain and the wind again, jeff. Yes, you are. Go. Reporter yes, sir. Its about, almost the same level that we experienced on the front end of this, we are getting now on the back end. It didnt look like there was that much there to me on the radar, but you can see obviously i cant read the radar very well. We are concerned, as you heard from the mayor just a short time ago, of Carolina Beach, they are concerned now about the beach erosion that will take place as a result of surge. If you look at these waves, you saw them earlier, they were coming either straight in or from the other direction. Now with the wind shift, they are coming in this way. Eventually they are coming straight in, and thats what causes the erosion. Im on a fairly high berm here that protects the town. If that were to fail, as you pointed out to him, that puts a lot of water in a lot of places, and puts a lot of people in jeopardy, the ones that have remained. Were just going to have to watch this over the course of the next several hours and hope against hope, because we know this is a huge storm, that its not going to just continue to keep biting into this sand dune. Well be here. Stuart yes. We will be back to you, jeff, at some point. Thank you very much indeed. Real drama. I want to go back to general keane. You got a call from defense secretary mattis. Sounded to me like its all hands on deck, ready to go at a moments notice. Get in there and do it. Yeah. Hes got enormous capacity. He will back up fema, he will back up some of the First Responders. The thing about First Responders, some people forget it, but we have seen it in other storms, is they are also victims of the storm, as are their families. Sometimes you have to really go in there and reinforce their capability because it gets beyond their capacity. Stuart thats what the military is doing. Reinforcing their they will reinforce it. Stuart i dont remember a time when you brought so many military assets into a civilian situation. Yeah, we did. Hurricane andrew. I was Brigadier General chief of staff. We deployed tens of thousands of troops to hurricane andrew right after desert storm. They were the same troops in desert storm. We put them down in hurricane andrew by the thousands. It was not a rescue operation. It was just to help with stability, debris removal. It was recovery, not rescue. This is likely, sadly to say, theres going to be some rescue involved in this. Stuart you get the two feet of rain over a very wide area. Unfortunately. Stuart you have helicopters ready to go for rescue. General, you really broke news for us today. We like that. Thank you. Glad to be here. Stuart our best respects to secretary mattis as well. Glad youre watching, sir. More varney after this. Whats inside . A moment of joy. A source of inspiration. An act of kindness. What will it bring . An old friend. A new beginning. Some welcome relief. Or a cause for celebration. The help youve been looking for. Whats inside . Possibilities. What we deliver by delivering. Our new, hot, fresh breakfast will get you the readiest. buzzer sound holiday inn express. Be the readiest. Stuart disruption for 10 million of our fellow americans. I cant even imagine. As we watch the storm literally just crawl along the coastline there of North Carolina, heading towards South Carolina, the water keeps piling up. You think of all the people. People are getting inland from the rain from the ocean. Stuart they dont know what the damage is in their own home. They dont know when they can go back. Firstresponders, point is made theyre in harms way and trying to help others. Stuart lets not forget the cajun navy. They operated in louisiana and texas during the last big hurricane. Theyre back using local volunteers in the carolinas. They are heroes of florence. My time is up, neil, it is yours. Neil right on all fronts, guys. Volunteers, in excess of 23,000 of them. Stuart pointing out, ashley pointing out, they have families, they have kids, they have worries. They stopped all of that to look after folks in danger. Think about that. I know i keep mentioning this. A lot of people say, neil, we have the greatest generation thing. We look back to the greatest generation. These are the kids and grandkids of the greatest generation. Crises hike these prove it is in our dna to do decent stuff. That storm is going on with half a Million People without power