All,
I will not overly or exclusively focus on loss of life or property damage to gauge the impact of this storm, as important as those items are.
They will not be the story here, IMHO, as this storm did not hit populated areas head-on.
The key issue with this storm is not whether the roof blew off on the Civic Center, but whether the oil/gas production, refining, and distribution infrastructure has been compromised. If it has, then the immediate and significant ripples will be not only in high gas prices, which would be the least of our problems (I pay $7/gal here in Europe), but in shortages which will then potentially cause fundamental problems in this just-in-time-inventory economy. The dislocation resulting from that has the ability to snowball, especially on the backs of Katrina, into something very problematic for our near-term economy.
In other words, multiply the long lines and fist fights at gas stations, the looting, the failure of basic services, and the deprivation, exponentially in scope and frequency.
IMHO, that is the worry.
but at least it wasn't houston area