One of my clients emailed me on Saturday. She’d recently shopped at a Dallas area Target store to pick up some items for Christmas and had just read the news about the credit card breach at Target stores across the country. She was concerned and wanted to know what to do.
North Texas was hit by an ice storm about two weeks ago. Rain fell and froze then built up on trees and powers lines until weight won out and lines began to snap. The storm led to power loss for over 270,000 people with no numbers reported on the impact to small businesses.
Driving in the Dallas / Fort Worth area is always entertaining when we have an ice storm. Those of us who grew up in Texas or the southern parts of the country are just not very good at driving on ice, although I don’t know anyone who is. Aside from the normal slipping and sliding on LBJ or North Central Expressway, we learned that “cobblestone” ice can be just as challenging as sheet ice. There were also some interesting things that occurred with falling or flying ice that led to a number of car insurance claims.
North Texas spent last weekend digging out from the previous week’s ice storm. The sun finally came out and we got above freezing allowing the ice to melt. By the middle of the week, power was restored to most people, schools were in session, people were working, and the roads were clear.
Winter came early to north Texas last week when the rain turned into sleet and the temperatures plummeted 50 degrees from Wednesday’s high of 80. The ice built up on all surfaces including tree limbs and power lines. Some of the power lines snapped and others were ripped from poles when ice laden limbs broke off from trees and fell onto the already strained lines.
I got a call from a client on the Friday after Thanksgiving. He’d been hit on Central Expressway in Dallas after some Black Friday shopping by someone with no car insurance. The person who hit him was driving a pickup truck that rear ended him and then did some damage along the side of his car when he took off. He wanted to know what to do.
Thursday evening the rain and the temperatures fell as an arctic cold front came through Dallas, Fort Worth, and all of north Texas. Wet roads, power lines, trees, and shrubs began to accumulate ice. The ice built up, weighing down tree limbs and power lines causing them to sag. Limbs snapped from the weight of accumulated ice in the early hours of the morning sounding like rifle shots and landing with thumps in yards, on cars, and on rooftops.
Before credit reports and scores existed, financial institutions had to guess whether someone was a good applicant (or risk) for taking out a loan. Credit reports and scores were “invented” to take the guess work out of it. The national average credit score is approximately 672 – – but how are credit scores calculated?
Every 43 seconds a vehicle is stolen in the US. That works out to about 3,000 vehicles a day or almost a million every year. Many of the cars stolen are older car models made in 1990’s through early 2000’s. That’s changing as crooks become smarter and use technology enabling them to defeat electronic locks and anti-theft measures. Some of the technologies even allow them to start your car without a key by using an electronic device that interacts with your car’s computer and start it tapping a screen.
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