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(WASHINGTON) — Within days, millions of Americans are expected to be able to take their first steps to cancel up to $20,000 in debt under President Joe Biden’s federal student loan forgiveness program — a multibillion-dollar initiative cheered on by advocates but which already faces legal challenges.

The Biden administration announced in August that single borrowers who earn under $125,000 can qualify for $10,000 in federal school loan debt cancellation while those who are married qualify for that amount if their joint income is under $250,000 (as calculated by gross adjusted income from 2020 or 2021).

Recipients of Pell grants — which are designed for people with “exceptional financial need,” according to the government — are eligible for an additional $10,000 to be canceled, or $20,000 total

Of the 43 million federal student loan borrowers who have accrued more than $500 billion in debt, most will need to fill out an application to see if they qualify for forgiveness. Only about eight million of those borrowers will automatically have their debt canceled, according to the White House, because the Department of Education already has their income information.

On Thursday, the Biden administration quietly excluded some borrowers of Perkins loans and Federal Family Education Loans (FFEL). Both groups formerly qualified for loan cancellation. While some four million Americans in total have these loans, an administration official told ABC News that only about 770,000 people will be affected by the change.

At a Sept. 26 briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said there would be additional updates on the application process “very soon.” The administration maintains that the “simple process” will open in early October.

Outside experts are more skeptical of how smoothly the program will run.

“When you see the huge numbers that the administration projects will benefit from this initiative, that all depends on people being able to take these steps and have that debt relief applied to their account in a way that actually works,” said Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy group.

Here are the key dates and details, so far, for applying for student loan forgiveness:

Early October: Loan forgiveness applications open

Applications for student loan cancellation will be released in early October, according to the DOE, though a more specific date has not yet been confirmed.

The department is recommending that everyone file an application, even those who might already qualify for automatic forgiveness.

To be notified when the process has officially opened, the department recommends borrowers sign up at their subscription page. (Private companies like Navient and Nelnet, which help administer the loans and repayments, are likewise referring borrowers to a government portal created to share updates on student loans.)

It’s unclear how many of the 43 million borrowers will submit applications. In cost estimates, the White House has said it could be as many as 75% of eligible people or as few as 50%.

“It will all depend on how good we are getting the word out about this opportunity and making sure that people actually do raise their hands to get in the line to get their debts canceled,” Pierce said.

Nov. 15: The recommended deadline to apply

DOE officials recommend that borrowers apply for student loan forgiveness by Nov. 15 in order to receive relief before the pandemic-era payment pause expires on Dec. 31 and interest begins accruing again.

The department said they expect a four-to-six-week turnaround for forgiveness.

However, some advocates like Pierce worry that may not be feasible, given the track record the federal government has with processing debt relief.

The DOE has not released details regarding a plan for borrowers whose applications are still being processed by the time the payment pause lifts after December.

Jan. 1: Student loan payments resume

Jan. 1 is when regular student loan payments will resume after a three-year moratorium first enacted under President Donald Trump during the onset of COVID-19. If a borrower’s entire balance is not erased by the federal forgiveness program, interest will begin accruing again on the remaining sum.

Dec. 31, 2023 : The program application sunsets

The application period for student loan forgiveness will close on Dec. 31, 2023.

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(NEW YORK) — Getting a foot in the door at a company is a huge step for any job seeker. And one woman’s clever concept involving a cross-country pastry ploy quickly went viral on LinkedIn, but it was an unexpected friendship with the Instacart delivery woman who was integral to the plan that was the real icing on the cake.

Like so many Americans searching for their next move in a sea of creative, well-qualified applicants, 27-year-old Karly Pavlinac Blackburn was hoping to land a conversation at her dream company but got stuck trying to figure out how to break through.

“I was actually talking to my former colleague about getting in front of employers — and he was like, ‘Well, Karly you need to do better … show up in a creative way … what about a resume on a cake?’ ” she recalled, speaking with ABC News’ Good Morning America.

Although Pavlinac knew there were no open positions with Valiant Labs, Nike’s new business incubator, she took up her colleague’s suggestion in the hopes that it might help her find some favor within their team.

“I was like, I’m actually going to do that,” she said, noting that she hoped the cake would ensure she was “on their mind if roles did come up in the future.”

As for the execution, Pavlinac, who previously founded and sold a celebrity fitness monetization app, admitted “it was kind of difficult” because she lives in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Nike World Headquarters are based in Beaverton, Oregon — meaning she couldn’t just swing by a bakery, pick up a specialty order and deliver it to them herself.

“I’m on the other side of the country trying to get a cake delivered to Nike, [which is] in Oregon,” she said.

Instead, Pavlinac searched online and found an Albertson’s store 4.4 miles from Nike World Headquarters that offered screenprint-frosted photos on sheet cakes with delivery options through Instacart.

“The only difficult thing is when an Instacart delivery is made, you don’t know who’s gonna deliver it,” she said. “The cake has to be made ahead of time, so I had to call Albertsons and I was like, ‘Hey, there’s gonna be a delivery on this day, I know, you don’t know about it yet, but I’m gonna have to have this cake ready. You’re gonna need the image, and it’s gonna have to be ready before they get there [to pick it up].'”

On Sept. 8, an hour ahead of the delivery window at 8 a.m. local time, Pavlinac called the Albertsons store to confirm the order — a half-sheet vanilla cake with her resume printed on top — would be completed.

Everything was on schedule — now all Pavlinac needed was to ensure the cake would make it to its location.

“Lucky for me Denise was the person from Instacart that day to pick up the cake, because she’s just so amazing,” Pavlinac said, referring to highly ranked platinum Instacart courier Denise Baldwin.

Baldwin had her own to-do list once she arrived at the store to pick up the cake delivery.

“[Pavlinac] wanted me to take a look at it and make sure it looked OK,” Baldwin told GMA of the initial instructions that came with the Instacart order. “Me and the baker were both talking about it, because we couldn’t believe that somebody had gone out of the box and did a resume on a cake … I messaged Karly and said, ‘It looks great. I’m on my way to the campus, and I’ll let you know how things go.'”

The two stayed in constant communication after Baldwin left the store and navigated the massive Nike campus in search of Mac Myers from Business Operations at Nike Valiant Labs.

“She gets there and someone from security was like, ‘OK leave the cake here.’ And [Denise] said, ‘No, I have to give it to Mac, I have to see it go in his hands,'” Pavlinac recalled. “At the time I didn’t know this, but she had her 8-month-old son on one hip the whole time — she didn’t even tell me, she was just like, ‘I’m gonna get it done.'”

The working mom of three — with another on the way — told Pavlinac, “‘Don’t worry, I’m here on the campus. I’ll do whatever it takes.'”

Myers eventually came down after a call from security letting him know about the delivery. According to Baldwin, Myers was “kind of blown away” and even asked to take a picture of himself with the cake for confirmation.

The pair later shared their story in a now-viral LinkedIn post, which has been liked more than 100,000 times and garnered thousands of comments.

Pavlinac has been busy ever since with back-to-back calls from recruiters and potential employers. She’s also been checking in regularly with her new mentee, Baldwin, who is looking for her dream job as well.

“My day is jam-packed from 8 [a.m.] to 5 [p.m.] with conversations, interviews — I have so many amazing messages from people on LinkedIn that I’m still trying to go through,” Pavlinac said, adding that she has her sights set on a future in product marketing.

“The cool thing afterwards was, [Denise] texted me, ‘You’ve inspired me to go chase after something better,'” Pavlinac said. “I told her whatever I can do to help find a job … be it sharing documents on ‘how to do a job should search’ or talk[ing] about what jobs might fit.”

Baldwin, a self-described “go-getter,” said she’s looking for a position in an assistant or human resources role that capitalizes on her communications and multitasking skills.

“I’m just trying to get my foot in the door where I can have good benefits for my kids and have some security and stability,” she said.

Perhaps more important is the newfound friendship the two women have developed as a result of their cake delivery scheme — and what that friendship has taught them both.

“Denise inspires me to be a better person,” Pavlinac said.

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(NEW YORK) — Hurricane Ian flooded cities and devastated homes across Florida and coastal South Carolina, leaving destruction in its wake.

Search-and-rescue missions are ongoing as the death toll climbed to 85 on Sunday, based on information from local officials. Meanwhile, residents and officials assessed the damage incurred by the storm.

In all, the economic damage wrought by the hurricane could reach up to $75 billion, according to a projection released on Saturday by data firm Enki Research, which studies the financial impact of storms.

The estimate put the best-case scenario for storm damage at $66 billion, Enki Research said. The median projection of cost amounts to $71 billion, according to computer models used by the data firm.

Hurricane Ian will be among the 10 costliest storms in U.S. history, Enki Research said, adding that it may end up among the five costliest after the damage is fully assessed.

However, the projected costs for Hurricane Ian would amount to less than half of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, which totaled $161 billion.

Hurricane Ian demolished homes and businesses, damaged infrastructure like roads and bridges and harmed citrus fruit trees that make up a key industry in the state.

Florida accounts for 70% of citrus fruits — such as oranges, grapefruits and tangerines — produced in the U.S.

Fixtures of the state’s tourism industry, like Disney World and Universal Orlando, temporarily closed as the storm approached earlier this week. On Friday, the parks announced that they would begin to reopen in phases.

President Joe Biden on Friday said destruction from Hurricane Ian could end up among the nation’s most severe.

“We’re just beginning to see the scale of that destruction,” he said, adding that the damage is “likely to rank among the worst” in U.S. history.

On Thursday, Biden approved a major disaster declaration for Florida, allowing additional federal aid to flow to the state.

Speaking on Thursday, Biden vowed support for state and local officials as they assess the damage caused by the storm, saying the federal government will cover the full cost of clearing debris and of rebuilding public buildings like schools and state fire stations.

The government will also be providing support to people with destroyed or damaged homes.

On Wednesday, the then-Category 4 hurricane sustained wind speeds of 150 mph as it made landfall on Florida’s west coast. The storm struck the coastal city of Fort Myers and affected nearby cities of Tampa Bay and Sarasota, before traveling east across the peninsula toward Orlando.

On Friday, the storm made landfall in South Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane, causing flooding and home damage in coastal cities like Charleston and Myrtle Beach.

“It’s definitely going to be one of the stronger storms and more damaging storms,” Chuck Watson, Enki Research founder and director of research and development, told Bloomberg on Tuesday.

Hurricane Charley, a major storm that struck Florida in 2004, caused damage that today would amount to between $20 billion and $25 billion, Watson said.

While it caused major damage, Hurricane Ian avoided a large disruption of the U.S. oil and gas industry, which would have come about if the storm had traveled toward Texas and Louisiana, industry analysts previously told ABC News.

The state doesn’t host any oil refineries and accounts for about 6,000 barrels of oil production each day, said Andy Lipow, a longtime oil analyst and president of Lipow Oil Associates.

That output makes up a tiny fraction of overall U.S. oil production, which amounts to 11.8 million barrels per day, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported this month.

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(PITTSBURGH) — Tadge Juechter has spent nearly 30 years perfecting every generation of the Corvette. With the Z06, the latest Corvette to roll off the assembly line in Kentucky, he and his team of engineers are breaking new ground.

The sports car’s naturally-aspirated, flat-plane crankshaft V8 engine produces 670 horses, a feat neither Juechter nor his team believed was possible.

“Every design element centered around maximizing horsepower and track performance,” Juechter, Corvette’s executive chief engineer, told ABC News from Pittsburgh International Raceway, where journalists were test driving the car.

The Z06 races from 0-60 mph in 2.7 seconds. With the Z07 performance package, the time drops to 2.6 seconds.

“This car is more powerful than the last generation,” he went on. “When we started the project it was a bit of a gut check. We weren’t sure we could match the output of the supercharged small block [engine]. We pushed as much as we could.”

Enthusiasts and gearheads have been anxiously awaiting the Z06’s arrival. The track-focused sports car, with an 8,600-rpm redline and top speed of 195 mph, is the sole General Motors vehicle to be built with the all-new 5.5L LT6 engine.

It will also likely be the last. In April, Chevrolet posted a teaser clip of an electrified Corvette in camouflage, drifting and dancing on an ice track.

GM President Mark Reuss confirmed in a LinkedIn post that the Detroit automaker was currently developing a hybrid version of its storied sports car. A fully electric Corvette was in the works too, Reuss said.

The Corvette community has been “amazingly supportive” of the brand’s electrified direction, Juechter said, adding that some owners may need more convincing.

“There are people who have said, ‘That’s not for me, hope you sell internal combustion engines forever,'” he explained.

Tyson Jominy, vice president of data and analytics at J.D. Power, has a stern message for the doubters: electrification will make the Corvette even better than it is today.

“The things you can do with electrification far exceeds ICEs in almost every capacity. I don’t think that’s up for debate,” he told ABC News. “I recognize that not everyone thinks that way and it may take a long time for Corvette buyers to come around.”

The anti-electrification attitude in enthusiast circles may help explain why Porsche and Chevrolet have posted record sales of the 911 and Corvette in the last two years. According to J.D. Power, the midsize sports car segment now accounts for 0.5% of the U.S. auto market, up from 0.3% pre-pandemic.

Jominy expects eager buyers to pay well above the Z06’s MSRP of $103,500. Options and performance packages can push the price to $170,000.

“The Z06 is the spiritual center of Chevy and such an important vehicle,” he said. “Chevy is not building a lot of these. I expect demand to be extraordinarily high.”

John Pearley Huffman, senior editor at Road & Track, said the aural and tactical satisfaction of the Z06 can’t be matched in a hybrid or electric Corvette.

“It’s not just raw acceleration, you can feel the gears grinding in your hands,” he said. “It’s stinky rotten fast … and may be the last, great mechanical Corvette and the most satisfying to drive in the artistic sense. This is a quantum leap for Corvette.”

For the die-hards who will repent the end of Corvette’s famed V8 powerplant, Pearley Huffman said that would be a mistake.

“You have to embrace the future. Going electric doesn’t mean these cars and naturally aspirated engines will go away,” he noted. “They’ll be artifacts of the time. An electrified Corvette is still something to look forward to.”

Ivan Drury, director of insights at car-shopping service Edmunds, remembers the backlash when Chevrolet debuted the eighth-generation Stingray in 2019. The engine now sat behind the driver and the manual transmission option was gone.

“There was a lot of talk about alienation but there has been so much demand for a product that was very polarizing,” he told ABC News. “The C8 Stingray has shattered sales records.”

Drury expects even non-Corvette fans to seek out this Z06, one of the last sports cars on the market with a naturally aspirated engine.

“People are nostalgic about what’s going on in the industry. The Z06 will be seen as an investment,” he said, adding, “The car will become a museum piece. I want to see it alive, living and breathing on the tarmac.”

Brian Baker, the director of collections and education at the National Corvette Museum and a former GM engineer, said Corvette devotees can view the Z06 up close at the museum, including every Z06 produced since 1963, when Chevrolet introduced the nameplate. The museum, a 501(c), is raffling off a 2023 Z06 on Dec. 15.

Baker said his blood curdled the first time he heard the Z06’s engine being revved.

“It was like the hounds of hell being released,” he told ABC News. “The engine has a very different sound … more akin to what European exotics use. It’s a remarkable advancement for Corvette.”

As for Corvette going electric, Baker said longtime customers have to embrace the future.

“Corvette is not sitting still,” he said. “While we preserve the heritage, it’s a moving, living brand. We are moving into the 21st century.”

Workers at the Bowling Green Assembly plant, where 1.1 million Corvettes have been built since 1981, are busy filling the “flood of orders” for the Z06, Juechter said. Chevrolet capped production this year to meet unprecedented demand following the Z06’s reveal.

“The reaction from our customer base has been astonishing,” Juechter said. “Dealers have hoards of people wanting to get a place in line for this car.”

Even the harshest of critics — the car aficionados who revere Italian and German supercar performance — will be impressed with this Z06, Juechter said.

“The big picture was to emulate the soul of Ferrari but match Porche’s clinical speed,” he said. “This is the most aggressive aero we’ve ever done. But the Z06 is still a street car.”

Juechter pointed to the reaction of a Formula One driver who lapped the Z06 in Pittsburgh last month.

“He gave me a hug when he got out of the car,” he said. “The proof is in the pudding when you drive it.”

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(NEW YORK) — The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday charged reality star Kim Kardashian over a post she made promoting a crypto asset security sold by EthereumMax “without disclosing the payment she received for the promotion.”

Kardashian will pay $1.26 million to settle the civil charges, the SEC said in its announcement.

The SEC alleged that Kardashian failed to disclose that she received $250,000 to publish a post on her Instagram account about EMAX tokens, the crypto asset security being offered by EthereumMax.

“This case is a reminder that, when celebrities or influencers endorse investment opportunities, including crypto asset securities, it doesn’t mean that those investment products are right for all investors,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a statement.

“We encourage investors to consider an investment’s potential risks and opportunities in light of their own financial goals,” he added.

The $1.26 million settlement equals the payment Kardashian received for the promotion as well as a $1 million penalty, the SEC said. Kardashian also agreed to forego the promotion of any crypto asset securities for three years, the agency added.

Kardashian is among a number of celebrities named in a class-action lawsuit filed last January in a California U.S. District Court over allegations from investors that they suffered losses after the celebrities promoted the crypto coin. That court case is ongoing.

The plaintiffs invested money after “viewing numerous celebrity endorsements of EMAX,” the lawsuit said.

Kardashian filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit last month, arguing that none of the investors claimed to have seen her promotional Instagram posts.

The value of an EthereumMax coin fell 1.75% on Monday.

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(NEW YORK) — Hurricane Ian flooded major cities and devastated homes after it made landfall in Florida — but the damage isn’t done.

After temporarily becoming a tropical storm, Hurricane Ian accelerated to Category 1 strength on Thursday night as it barreled toward South Carolina, with landfall expected on Friday.

In all, the economic damage wrought by the hurricane could reach up to $65 billion, according to a projection released on Thursday by data firm Enki Research, which studies the financial impact of storms.

The estimate put the best-case scenario for storm damage at $55 billion, Enki Research said.

The historic storm demolished homes and businesses, damaged infrastructure like roads and bridges and appears to have harmed citrus fruit trees that make up a key industry in the state.

Florida accounts for 70% of citrus fruits — such as oranges, grapefruits and tangerines — produced in the U.S.

Fixtures of the state’s tourism industry, like Disney World and Universal Orlando, temporarily closed as the storm approached earlier this week. On Friday, the parks announced that they would begin to reopen in phases.

President Joe Biden on Thursday approved a major disaster declaration for Florida, allowing additional federal aid to flow to the state.

Speaking on Thursday, Biden vowed support for state and local officials as they assess the damage caused by the storm, saying the federal government will cover the full cost of clearing debris and of rebuilding public buildings like schools and state fire stations.

The government will also be providing support to people with destroyed or damaged homes.

More than 8,700 people have registered for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.

On Wednesday, the then-Category 4 hurricane sustained wind speeds of 150 mph as it made landfall on Florida’s west coast.

The storm struck the coastal city of Fort Myers, and affected nearby cities of Tampa Baby and Sarasota, before traveling east across the peninsula toward Orlando.

“It’s definitely going to be one of the stronger storms and more damaging storms,” Chuck Watson, Enki Research founder and director of research and development, told Bloomberg on Tuesday.

Hurricane Charley, a major storm that struck Florida in 2004, caused damage that today would amount to between $20 billion and $25 billion, Watson said.

The projected costs for Hurricane Ian would amount to less than half of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, which totaled $161 billion.

While it caused major damage, Hurricane Ian avoided a large disruption of the U.S. oil and gas industry, which would have come about if the storm had traveled toward Texas and Louisiana, industry analysts previously told ABC News.

The state doesn’t host any oil refineries and accounts for about 6,000 barrels of oil production each day, said Andy Lipow, a longtime oil analyst and president of Lipow Oil Associates.

That output makes up a tiny fraction of overall U.S. oil production, which amounts to 11.8 million barrels per day, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported this month.

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(NEW YORK) — The centerpiece for Thanksgiving tables across the country will cost more than ever this holiday season.

The American Farm Bureau Federation announced Wednesday that “families can expect to pay record high prices at the grocery store for turkey” due to bird flu and inflation.

The organization analyzed turkey costs in their latest Market Intel, finding retail prices on fresh boneless, skinless turkey breast reached a record high of $6.70 per pound in September, which is up 112% from 2021. The previous record high price was $5.88 per pound in November 2015, during the highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak.

“This is particularly challenging for turkey production, because it takes a really long time to grow a turkey to its market weight of about 30 pounds. So when we saw these significant shocks to supply this spring, we’re now seeing it in grocery stores reflected in those prices today,” American Farm Bureau Federation senior economist Veronica Nigh told ABC News’ Good Morning America.

With inflation at a near 40-year high, retail food prices were up 11.4% in August compared to the same time last year.

Despite higher prices, farmers and retailers believe there should be enough turkeys to meet the holiday demand.

“All of us are feeling the pain of higher prices at the grocery store,” American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall said in a statement. “HPAI outbreaks in the spring and an uptick in cases in the fall are taking a toll, but farmers remain dedicated to ensuring America’s food supply remains strong.”

Over 40 states have confirmed cases of bird flu, which has wreaked havoc on 46 million birds in the U.S.

In Minnesota, the top turkey supplier in the U.S., the situation has gotten so dire with the deadly outbreak that Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order to waive trucking regulations in an effort to help fight the spread.

“If your turkeys end up with bird flu, any other poultry on the farm, whether it’s meat chickens, egg layers, they all have to be exterminated and that’s not only a huge financial loss that’s just a really sad situation,” Nellie Lovenduski of Slate River Farms told local affiliate WXXA-TV.

But farmers maintain that consumers can still find their Thanksgiving turkeys.

“I think at a minimum you’re going to see an increase in price in turkeys even in the big box turkey providers,” Lovenduski said.

But Nigh explained there’s still ways to save.

“We’re looking at ways to perhaps mitigate cheaper Thanksgiving dinner and maybe more side dishes to go along with that with that turkey and looking for substitutes at the grocery store,” she suggested. “Think about getting a frozen burger rather than a fresh turkey this year. Ways to really stretch that dollar and so that we can all be together but still have that traditional Thanksgiving dinner.”

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(NEW YORK) — Fleeing Hurricane Ian, Kallie Collins, her fiance and four of her children flew out of Tampa Bay on Tuesday hours before the airport halted flights. However, her fifth child, a 14-year-old boy, wasn’t on the plane with them.

Months earlier, the family had purchased plane tickets for an October visit to her parents in Minnesota. As the storm headed straight toward their Tampa Bay-area home, the airline allowed them to move up their departure date and evacuate.

But her eldest son hadn’t wanted to come along back when they scheduled the trip, and they couldn’t afford to add a ticket for him.

“Leaving your child behind in a situation like this is just horrible,” she said. “I felt so guilty.”

The family had spent all of its savings, a total $1,100, on hurricane preparations like storage for their valuables and medical supplies for her two children with special needs, Collins said. Ultimately, she found a brother-in-law who could shelter her son at his home in Jacksonville.

“With our savings depleted, plus inflation, we’re in a really, really tough financial spot,” Collins said. “I have no idea how we’re going to get through this.”

Collins is hardly the only person fleeing Hurricane Ian who faced dire financial choices in recent days.

More than 2.5 million Floridians fell under an evacuation order on Wednesday as the hurricane barreled toward the state, where 13% of people live in poverty and the median annual household income is about $58,000.

For low- and middle-income households, the costs of evacuation can force individuals to put themselves in harm’s way, go into credit card debt or rely on support from family members and charity, advocates and experts said.

“The insecurity that so many people in this country are facing — you see it play out during a hurricane,” Mechele Dickerson, a professor at the University of Texas Law School who has studied the costs of living through a hurricane, told ABC News.

“The evacuations show the same thing we saw during COVID,” she added. “As soon as everything was shut down, the disparities were on display.”

Evacuating Hurricane Ian is unaffordable for many

During Hurricane Harvey, which struck Texas and Louisiana in 2017, hurricane evacuation cost households an average of $1,200, David Bierling, a researcher at A&M’s Texas Transportation Institute and Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center, told the Texas Observer. Costs add up from transportation, lodging, food and lost wages, his research showed.

That sudden financial burden would prove out of reach for most Americans. More than half of people across the U.S. cannot afford to cover a $1,000 emergency, according to a Bankrate survey in January.

Many people cannot afford to evacuate because they lack a car and the savings to pay for alternate transportation, Dickerson said, noting the costs of staying at a hotel also exceed many household budgets.

Further, people who work for hourly wages often cannot afford to miss days or weeks of work as they shelter elsewhere, Dickerson added. “If somebody could be making money if they stay, there’s also the income component,” she said.

‘For low-income people, this is a disaster’

Still, many people have chosen to evacuate from the path of Hurricane Ian, even as they struggle to afford basic needs, said Vanessa Tinsley, the executive director of a Miami-area food bank called Bridge to Hope.

A local influx of evacuees has dramatically increased the number of people seeking food, she said.

“My phone has been ringing off the hook,” Tinsley told ABC News. “The increased need is enormous.”

Bridge to Hope, which typically provides food to 100 clients by appointment each day, saw the number of appointments shoot up to 156 on Thursday, she added. Tinsley hired two additional staff members to work the food pantry, nearly doubling a staff that usually stands at three. The heightened need will continue for at least a month, she said.

“For low-income people, this is a disaster,” she said. “The food budget is the last flexible piece they have.”

“You can’t call the bank and say, ‘I need a lower car payment,'” she added. “You can’t lower your car insurance, the cost of your housing, your utility bill.”

Jasmine King, a customer service representative for Enterprise Rent-A-Car who makes $16 per hour, evacuated from the Western coastal city of Bradenton on Tuesday night with her five children.

Staying with her kids at a hotel near the Miami airport, King faces $178 per night for lodging as she suffers lost wages from missing her job. In all, King’s savings have dwindled to $240, she said on Thursday, adding that she hopes to go home as soon as possible when the roads are navigable.

“This experience has been an eye-opener,” she told ABC News. “It’s not just the glitz and glam of living in a state like Florida, but do you have a financial backup plan if something goes wrong?”

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(NEW YORK) — Hurricane Ian could cripple Florida’s already-fragile homeowners insurance market. Experts say a major storm like Ian could push some of those insurance companies into insolvency, making it harder for people to collect on claims.

Since January 2020, at least a dozen insurance companies in the state have gone out of business, including six this year alone. Nearly 30 others are on the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation’s “Watch List” because of financial instability.

“Hurricane Ian will test the financial preparedness of some insurers to cover losses to their portfolios, in particular smaller Florida carriers with high exposure concentrations in the impacted areas,” Jeff Waters, an analyst at risk analytics company RMS and meteorologist, told ABC News. Waters said Florida is a peak catastrophe zone for reinsurers, and those with exposure will likely incur meaningful losses.

More than 1 million homes on the Florida Gulf Coast are in the storm’s path, and while Ian’s track and severity can change in the coming days, one early estimate pegs the potential reconstruction cost at $258 billion, according to Corelogic, a property analytics firm.

Industry analysts say years of rampant and frivolous litigation and scams have brought Florida’s home-insurance market to its knees, with many large insurers like Allstate and State Farm, reducing their exposure to the state in the past decade.

“Insurers most exposed to the storm will be the Florida-only insurers, which we define as insurance companies with at least 75% of their homeowners and commercial property premiums written in Florida,” according to a report from Moody’s Analytics submitted to ABC News.

The state-run, taxpayer-subsidized Citizens Property Insurance Corp. stands to lose the most. As more local insurance companies in Florida have closed their doors, Citizens has seen its number of policyholders swell from 700,000 to more than 1 million in just the past year.

Florida state Sen. Jeff Brandes, a Republican from St. Petersburg and a vocal critic of Florida’s insurance industry, warns that if Citizens can’t pay its claims, Floridians should brace for assessments to go up on their own insurance policies under a state law that allows it to assess non-customers to pay out claims.

“Every policy holder in the state of Florida, home and auto, should be watching this storm very carefully because it could have a direct impact on their pocketbooks,” said Brandes. He predicts policy holders will see rate hikes of up to 40% next year as a result of Ian.

A spokesperson for Citizens did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Florida is already home to the highest insurance premiums in the U.S., something Charlie Crist, the former Florida governor running against incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis, blames on his opponent.

“Gov. DeSantis let these insurance companies double Floridians’ rates and they’re still going belly up when homeowners need them most. You pay and pay and pay, and the insurance company isn’t there for you in the end anyway,” Crist said in a statement Monday.

A spokesperson for DeSantis did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

In May, DeSantis signed a bipartisan property insurance reform bill into law that poured $2 billion into a reinsurance relief program and $150 million into a grant program for hurricane retrofitting. Among other things, it prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage based on the age of a roof and limits attorney fees on frivolous claims and lawsuits.

At a news conference Tuesday, DeSantis said a lot of the damage from Ian would be from flooding and storm surge. DeSantis said the danger with the Tampa Bay area is that the water has no place to go, noting that the area has close to 1 million residents enrolled in a national flood insurance program.

Homeowner policies typically do not cover flood damage, and most homeowners located in a flood zone often get coverage from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Most private property insurance companies insure primarily for wind damage.

President Joe Biden on Thursday approved DeSantis’ request for a disaster declaration for a number of counties in the state. It includes grants for temporary housing and home repairs and low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses.

“The expense will be higher because of higher construction costs and overall inflation,” Denise Rappmund, the vice president of Moody’s Public Project and Infrastructure Finance Group, told ABC News. “FEMA is the key source of aid following a natural disaster, but much of the costs to repair and rebuild damaged property will be borne by property insurers who will benefit from $2 billion of state-funded reinsurance.”

Analysts say Hurricane Ian has the potential to be among the four costliest storms in U.S. history, mostly because Florida’s population has exploded in recent years.

No state in the eastern U.S. has grown faster in population than Florida in the past decade and the state’s fastest growing cities: Tampa, Fort Myers and Sarasota, are all in the storm’s path. Analysts warn that more people and more homes mean that a major storm could become more destructive and costly.

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(NEW YORK) — As elevated prices for oil and gas strain U.S. households, the country faces a weather event that some fear will send the costs of these essentials even higher: Hurricane Ian.

The category 4 hurricane on Wednesday sustained wind speeds of 150 miles per hour as it made landfall on Florida’s west coast.

Speaking at an event in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, President Joe Biden warned oil and gas companies against raising prices amid the storm.

“Do not, let me repeat, do not use this as an excuse to raise gasoline prices or gouge the American people,” he said.

Americans need not worry about price increases for gasoline as a result of the hurricane, industry analysts told ABC News, noting that the path of the storm has averted key oil-producing states, such as Texas and New Orleans.

The storm will not cause widespread food price hikes, either, since Florida isn’t a major producer of food, analysts said. However, the state is a top exporter of citrus fruit — such as oranges and grapefruits — which could experience price hikes depending on the extent of damage, an analyst said.

Here’s what to know about the impact Hurricane Ian will have on gas and food prices:

The impact of Hurricane Ian on gas prices

Hurricane Ian will not affect gasoline prices, industry analysts said.

“I don’t think it’ll have any impact at all,” Andy Lipow, a longtime oil analyst and president of Lipow Oil Associates, told ABC News.

Florida, the analysts said, simply doesn’t produce much oil. The state doesn’t host any oil refineries and accounts for about 6,000 barrels of oil production each day, Lipow estimated. That output makes up a tiny fraction of overall U.S. oil production, which amounts to 11.8 million barrels per day, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported this month.

“Just as a matter of geography, there is no direct effect on the oil and gas market,” Pavel Molchanov, a senior energy analyst at Raymond James, told ABC News. “Florida is not an energy-producing state in the way Texas and Louisiana are.”

Hurricane Ian did cause temporary disruption of major oil platforms in the gulf of Mexico, however. As a precaution, BP and Chevron on Monday cut production at offshore oil platforms, evacuating personnel as the storm grew in strength, Lipow said.

Those facilities produce 485,000 barrels per day and represent 27% of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico but less than 5% of overall U.S. oil production, Lipow said.

But the disruption is temporary. BP began working to return personnel to its offshore platforms on Tuesday, the company said.

“Once they get the people out there, it’s back to production within a day,” Lipow said.

The effect of Hurricane Ian on food prices

Similarly, the hurricane won’t cause large-scale hikes in food prices, since Florida doesn’t play a major role in the sector, industry analysts said.

“It’s just one state in the union and a state that really does not produce a lot of food,” Kenneth Scott Zuckerberg, lead economist for grain and farm supply with CoBank, told ABC News. “In the grand scheme of things, this is well within the context of what happens in the agricultural sector.”

However, the state does factor significantly in the production of two items: fertilizer and citrus fruit, the analysts said.

Phosphate, a key ingredient of fertilizer, is mined and manufactured in the Tampa Bay-area, where a single company, Mosaic, produces 50% of North American phosphate fertilizer, the company says.

Damage to phosphate-related facilities could disrupt the tight market for fertilizer, but farmers typically accept smaller profit margins rather than pass the cost increases along to consumers, Zuckerberg said.

Another top export in Florida, citrus fruit, accounts for 70% of such foods produced in the U.S. Oranges, grapefruits, tangerines and the juices derived from them could undergo a hike in prices in a matter of weeks if the hurricane damages crops, said Arlan Suderman, a chief commodities analyst for financial services firm StoneX.

“The market is anticipatory,” Suderman told ABC News. “As soon as the hurricane goes through and they make an assessment, they’ll be pricing in expectations.”

If damage to citrus trees proves significant, Suderman said, the recovery of the citrus supply could take “several years.”

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