I'll tell you one thing...hurricanes boost certain retail industries.
Plywood was flying off the shelf in Home Depots. Some Home Depots that weren't 24 hour stores were still staying open for 24 hours and they were shipping in plywood and supplies from other areas.
Florida merchants have gotten smarter at least as far as the retail industry that provides needed hurricane supplies, IMHO.
The grocery stores never ran out of bottled water, the home depots never ran out of plywood, the batteries seem to be in good supply, there was tape available.
A few years ago if there had been a hurricane threat, if you didn't get water and groceries a few days ahead...there wouldn't be any.
Also the hotel industry in central Florida must have done a huge business because of people fleeing inland from Tampa Bay.
As far as the Tampa Bay area, businesses closed up for 1/2 a day, so that is all the revenue that was lost.
That is true. But that is the broken window fallacy. Let's say you have a window and S100 that you were planning to spend on a CD player.
The hurricane comes along and smashes your window, which will cost $100 to replace. True, the window guy makes $100, so it appears to be an economic benefit. But the audio equipment retailer is out the $100, although he may not know it because he didn't know you were planning to by the CD player. But his loss is real nonetheless.
Meanwhile, you are poorer because before the hurricane you would have had a window and a CD player. But now you only have a window.
If the window guy's gain were really a net advantage to the economy, then it would be a viable economic program for the US president to evacuate an American city and nuke it every few years in order to boost the economy.
But of course, in addition to being morally wrong, obviously such a policy would make the nation poorer. One cannot destroy a nation into prosperity.