re: Are natural disasters good for the economy?

i'm not going to say it's "good" or "positive" but infrastructure is one of the easier things to rebuild after devestation. this is more applicable to war, but it somewhat applies here, too

the issue with a lot of the areas affected by this flood is that the areas aren't really highly valued. when you have a bigger city like Nola get destroyed, the rebuilding effort can really remove urban blight and open up the door for gentrification (b/c there is demand for that real estate)