Hurricane Katrina :: Economic Impact
Hurricane Katrina has already had significant economic effects, which are expected to continue.
Experts anticipated Katrina to be the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. Some early predictions in damages exceeded $100 billion, not accounting for potential catastrophic damage inland due to flooding (which would increase the total even more), or damage to the economy caused by potential interruption of oil supply, and exports of commodities such as grain. Other predictions placed the minimum insured damage at around $12.5 billion (the insured figure is normally doubled to account for uninsured damages in the final cost). Before the hurricane the region supported about one million non-farm jobs, 600,000 of them in New Orleans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_effects_of_Hurricane_Katrina
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Unemployment
Hundreds of thousands of residents of southern Louisiana and Mississippi including nearly everyone who lived in New Orleans, are now unemployed. No paychecks are being cashed and no money is being spent in the city, thus no taxes are being collected in the city. The lack of revenue will limit the resources of the affected communities and states for years to come.
Gasoline prices
Gasoline prices reached and exceeded $3 USD per US gallon (79 cent/L) in the U.S. within days as a result—setting record highs; in Atlanta, Georgia, prices are already as high as $3.50 USD per US gallon (92 cent/L) as consumers rush to fill up. However, this is partially due to a consumer panic in Georgia on August 31, 2005. One CNN report showed a BP gas station selling regular unleaded gasoline for $5.87 per US gallon ($1.55/L). Many gas stations ran out of fuel despite the high prices. The prices in Europe are also increasing. In Germany, a unleaded gasoline costs about €1.45/L ($6.70 per US gallon); a week before, it was €1.30/L ($6.00 per US gallon).
Gasoline prices affect all segments of the economy that incorporate the cost of transportation into the supply of goods and services.
Retail prices for gasoline in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia spiked by 30 to 40 cents per US gallon (8 to 11 cent/L) on 31 August. Retail prices in Florida spiked slightly less by 30 to 35 cents per US gallon (8 to 9 cent/L), but with many pumps going dry on 31 August, and only Premium grades being available (lower-priced Regular grades having already been drained.) And CNN reported on the same day that some service stations in Atlanta, Georgia were charging as much as $6.07 US per US gallon ($1.60/L). In South Carolina, prices were increasing by the minute and regular grades jumped as high as $8.09/USgal ($2.14/L) in some areas.
On 1 September spiked another 30 to 40 cents per US gallon (8 to 11 cent/L). Similar price jumps were also seen at the pumps in Canada, where regular grade gas prices, which were hovering around the $1.00 C per liter mark prior to the hurricane, jumped by as much as 25 cent/L on September 1, pushing gas prices to all-time highs in that country. In the Chicago area, gas prices jumped by as much as 55 cents per US gallon (14 cent/L) during the afternoon of 1 September.
Smaller overnight price increases of 20 to 30 cents per gallon have been seen in Philadelphia on 2 September.
Since 5 September gasoline prices in the Philadelphia area have begun to creep down. While prices are not going down as quickly as they went up, prices can still change from morning to evening. Prices have gone down by as much as 30 cents per US gallon (8 cent/L) between 5 September and 7 September.
Gasoline prices this high are standard in Europe. For example, in the United Kingdom the standard price of petrolium before the hurricane was 0.90 UK pounds per liter which is the equivalent of $6.26 per US gallon. Though with the increase after the hurricane prices are nudging £1 per litre
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