Florida

Authored by Aaron Nelson via TheAntiMedia.org,

Residents of South Florida woke up yesterday morning to Hurricane Irma making landfall at 9:10 a.m. in the Florida Keys as a monster Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph.

The monster storm made a second landfall later at 3:35 p.m. near Marco Island as it continued traveling north along Florida’s Gulf Coast. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) expects Irma to continue overnight into Monday before finally losing hurricane strength status.

After tumbling last week on concerns that between damage from Harvey and Irma, losses for the P&C space would be devastating, today the broader insurer space is breathing a sigh of relief after the Hurricane's damage reportedly underwhelmed, especially following some especially dire observations over the weekend from the likes of Torsten Jeworrek, member of the board of the German reinsurance giant Munich Re, who on Sunday said that Hurricane Irma is proving to be a “major event” for Florida and the insurance industry.

Update (8:00am ET): As it travels over the Florida Panhandle, Irma has been downgraded to a tropical storm. Yet it continues to produce some wind gusts that are near hurricane force.

Tropical Storm #Irma Advisory 49A: Now available on the NHC website. https://t.co/VqHn0uj6EM

— NHC Atlantic Ops (@NHC_Atlantic) September 11, 2017

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And we're back at all time highs.

In what is either a generous act of charity or an unnerving example of the control Tesla exercises over the vehicles it producers, or perhaps both, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has magically unlocked the batteries of every Tesla in Florida to maximize the distance that people fleeing from Hurricane Irma can travel before stopping to refuel at one of the company’s “superstation” charging centers.

Typically, these types of over-the-air upgrades can cost thousands – if not tens of thousands – of dollars.