Posted on 09/04/2005 12:48:28 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
The broad American economy has largely withstood the early effects of Hurricane Katrina, even as residents of the Gulf Coast suffer through a regional economic disaster with few equals.
The flooding has displaced about one million workers in the Gulf Coast region, many of whom will not be able to resume their jobs anytime soon. While some employees of large companies are still receiving paychecks, Wal-Mart stopped paying workers in the area four days after shutting its stores, and McDonald's and UPS have not paid regular wages to idled employees since the storm hit.
The hurricane has also bottled up grain shipments on the Mississippi River, hurting farmers and grain exporters, and saddled households with even higher energy costs.
The effect of the damage to oil rigs and refineries in the gulf is the greatest uncertainty. But contrary to early fears, the nation's transportation network has not become overwhelmed so far, and despite spot shortages drivers have generally been able to buy gasoline. The price of crude oil fell 2 percent on Friday - to $67.57, up only $1 from a week ago - as a large importing terminal off the coast of Louisiana reopened and the International Energy Agency announced that it would release emergency oil supplies.
As corporate executives scrambled to get in touch with employees who lived in Katrina's path, most said they had seen little overall effect on their businesses.
"It's a little too early to tell," said Fred Beljaars, an executive vice president of DHL, the shipping company. "But the first indications are that there is no real impact on trade."
Apple Computer, Intel and National Semiconductor all reported that their operations were running normally. So did Harley-Davidson and Whirlpool.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Counts how long the port is jammed up and the refineries off line...But it's good to see some resiliancy in the system...
First fears would be that it would throw the country into a recession. Sounds like the economy might be strong enough to handle this sudden jolt so far. All those countries offering their emergency oil supplies is also going to help cushion the blow to oil supplies.
the story remains the incompetence of the local government.
Probably because economic activity there (per capita at least) was the slowest in the country to begin with.
...in addition to some stupidity on the part of Homeland Security and FEMA as well. Nice to hear that oil operations are recovering somewhat, but federal and state governments need to allow more exploration and drilling elsewhere in the country so that hurricanes will have a lesser impact. And yes, Louisiana needs a political harrowing.
It might be prudent for arm-chair first responders to hold off on an "All Clear" message on the economic impact of Katrina.
The impact of 9/11 on our economy was sizable and only 3000 lives were lost there.
And consider the source: The NYT.
Finally, it ain't over. It's still happening. Nothing like it has happened in recorded history and irreversable consequences are totally unmapped.
We'll all take it like it comes whether dire predictions come true or not.
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