美国国家公共电台 NPR Florida Businesses Struggle To Reopen Without Power After Irma

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The economic damage in Florida will be more limited than first thought because of Irma's path and the precautions people took. There are still a lot of challenges, though. And many businesses in the state haven't been able to reopen yet. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports.

YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE 1: With about 5 million homes and businesses remaining without electricity throughout the state of Florida, a lot of the business recovery efforts there will depend on how quickly power can be restored. Carol McDaniel is vice 2 president of human resources for the Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg.

CAROL MCDANIEL: It's going to be probably many more days before they can even assess and turn it back on because there's a lot of lines down in the streets and stuff with trees on them.

NOGUCHI: The hospital generates its own power and remained open. But McDaniel says she does not know yet how many employees' homes and cars have been damaged. A consultant 3 I reached in Jacksonville said many office workers whose downtown offices flooded were telecommuting. Some stores have also reopened to sell critical supplies. In heavily damaged areas like Naples and Fort Myers, calls would not go through. Others left greetings like this.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Unfortunately, at this time, we are closed due to Hurricane Irma.

NOGUCHI: Overall, Irma's late turn up the less populated western side of Florida and its rapid loss of strength helped limit the economic damage. Moody's Analytics chief economist 4 Mark Zandi estimates losses from Irma, in terms of lost business and property damage, will total between 60 and $90 billion, which is less than half the damage of Hurricane Katrina.

MARK ZANDI: The economic hit is temporary. Rebuilding will kick in quickly. And, you know, a year or two down the road, these economies should be back up and running in full strength.

NOGUCHI: Gus Faucher is chief economist for PNC Financial. He expects hurricanes Irma and Harvey will take about half a percent off the national economic growth rate for the quarter - not as bad an outcome as some had feared.

GUS FAUCHER: It's not going to be a complete rebuilding project.

NOGUCHI: That's not to say individual businesses won't struggle. Joyce Chastain is an employment law consultant in Tallahassee who has clients around the state. She says most remain closed through at least Tuesday. Larger businesses, she says, will rebuild relatively 5 quickly.

JOYCE CHASTAIN: Smaller businesses - they just don't have that kind of infrastructure 6. And some of them won't come back.

NOGUCHI: Business shutdowns also have a big impact on hourly employees, who may have to go without pay.

CHASTAIN: There will be many employers who just simply will not be in a financial position to continue pay for several weeks, when they can't be open to generate revenue.

NOGUCHI: Meanwhile in Houston, Paula Harvey is still dealing 7 with the effects of the hurricane that shared her surname. She says some orders for her business, Schulte Building Systems, are delayed, but none so far canceled. A bigger, long-term concern is whether the handful of employees who lost their homes and cars will remain.

PAULA HARVEY: What happens during these types of things is some people just say forget it and leave because they've lost everything. And they go, you know, somewhere else and start over again.

NOGUCHI: So far, she says, that's happened with one employee who simply did not report back to work. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.