Washington - UPI
The ice and snow is melting, but the financial hit North Carolina took from last week's winter storm will linger for a while, Gov. Pat McCrory said Sunday. McCrory told ABC's "This Week" that some communities in his state had maxed out their meager snow-removal budgets, and many businesses were dealing with a lack of customers. "It is a hit on our budget, and it's going to be a hit on the economy because people haven't been spending money for the last four or five days," McCrory said. Former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told ABC the Western United States were also facing an expensive weather-related challenge in the form of long-running drought that was squeezing farm production and running up the tab for fighting wildfires. "We are dealing with it in Los Angeles, because we've done some common sense things out here to conserve water, change out our landscaping, strengthen our building codes, Garcetti said. "But it is not a question anymore about this happening every so often; we're expecting this to be the new status quo."