Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene did not only affected individuals, but it greatly affected the economy, being one of the ten costliest catastrophes in U.S. history. Other than destroying homes, the resulting floods washed out cotton and tobacco crops, disrupted the shellfish population, crops in Virginia are damaged and the insurance industry estimated the total cost of the catastrophe to be at seven billion to ten billion dollars because the hurricane crashed a wide area of the East Coast. With our tight economy that we have now, it is going to be more difficult for people to rebuild their houses and other government projects. 1,100 homes were already destroyed in North Carolina and 260 Vermont roads were closed from storm damage. And those are just two states. Rebuilding the damage will be an economic difficulty and therefore will also affect people in the West Coast.