Hurricane Katrina's Legacy
By Steve Smith -- TWICE, 9/19/2005
The weather was warm, calm and peaceful during Labor Day weekend here in New York City. It was hardly calm and peaceful that same weekend in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
In fact the weather here that weekend was eerily familiar to the day when planes struck the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan four years ago, to the horror of us all.
What made many of us think about that day were the images we saw on our TVs of the destruction of the Gulf Coast; the devastation of New Orleans; and the death, disease and overall misery Hurricane Katrina caused.
One was an attack by a foreign enemy, the other a terrible occurrence of Mother Nature. The latter calamity had the added effect of our own inhumanity to each other during a natural disaster, plus an almost complete failure of government to aid, protect and comfort our own people immediately after the storm.
But it has also been a time of great heroism, compassion and generosity by thousands of first responders on the scene, and millions of people around the globe who contributed time and money.
As for helping our own, the continuing reports on what this industry specifically, and private industry in general, has done and continues to do has been exemplary. (For ongoing coverage see www.TWICE.com.) More will be needed in coming months.
For the electronics/appliance industry it is a time to not only help our own, those retailers and manufacturers who have been severely hurt by this tragedy, but to help our fellow citizens ... consumers to put it bluntly.
And it is a time to prepare as well for the fourth quarter. Hurricane Katrina's legacy will probably be $3 gasoline prices, giant spikes in heating oil and natural gas pricing, all during the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast while war and terrorism rage on.
As with Sept. 11, the first few days after the disaster brought the worst fears. Estimated death tolls for the World Trade Center were 25,000 to 50,000 a couple of days after the attack. Hellish death estimates were also made on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans which are so far, thankfully, inaccurate.
For what it's worth, industry executives and retail analysts we've spoken with in recent weeks seem to indicate that the effect of Katrina and higher energy costs will be minimal. The key will be higher transportation costs to move inventory around the country, which will eventually be paid by consumers. But will higher energy costs curb consumers' hunger for HDTV and other new CE products? Stay tuned.
Such discussions of commerce pale in comparison to the giant tasks our fellow citizens are facing and will continue to face in the Gulf Coast region for many, many months to come. Yet it is commerce, getting back to work, earning a paycheck, rebuilding schools and communities, etc., that create a sense of normalcy. We who lived and worked in New York City on that terrible day in September know plenty about the comfort of “getting back to normal,” whatever that means in this day and age.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to our fellow citizens in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. We hope that they get some sort of normal routine to their daily lives sooner than anyone now expects.
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