Hurricane Irene May Damage Cotton in Georgia, South Carolina

Hurricane Irene threatens to damage about a quarter of the cotton areas in Georgia, the second-largest grower in the U.S., and a large part of South Carolina, when it makes landfall, a weather forecaster said.

Irene was forecast to reach the eastern Florida coast and hit South Carolina on Aug. 27, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. It may affect Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, causing about $2.2 billion in losses, according to an initial estimate by Kinetic Analysis Corp., a risk modeling firm in Silver Spring, Maryland.