The Economy

Katrina's Impact: Construction & Equipment

Sept. 7, 2005

Materials Costs Will Rise Prices for cement, steel, copper, gypsum and diesel fuel were on the rise before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coat of the U.S. last week. And prices for many of these items will now go higher, believes Ken Simonson, chief ...

John McClenahen

Materials Costs Will Rise

Prices for cement, steel, copper, gypsum and diesel fuel were on the rise before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coat of the U.S. last week. And prices for many of these items will now go higher, believes Ken Simonson, chief economist for the Alexandria, Va.-based Associated General Contractors of America.

More On Hurricane Katrina
See IndustryWeek's Hurricane Katrina News & Resources section for more on coverage and how companies are responding.

"Contractors use a lot of diesel fuel for off-road equipment, their own trucks, and the multitude of deliveries of materials and equipment. Petroleum or natural gas is a key ingredient in asphalt, roofing materials, plastic pipe and insulation. And energy costs are built into the price of mining, milling, making, molding and transporting metals, concrete and most other construction materials," he explains. Cement was already in short supply in 32 states and the District of Columbia before the hurricane. "The disruption to ocean, barge and rail transport from Katrina, and the loss of power to cement plants in the storm's path, will cut further into cement supplies," he predicts.

Demand Seen For Computers, Fire Trucks

In addition to replacing production machinery and computers damaged by Hurricane Katrina, the storm will create demand for fire trucks, police cars and dump trucks, predicts the Herman Group, a Greensboro, N.C.-based consulting firm. At the same time, "employers throughout the U.S. could recruit displaced workers, with their high level of competency. The difficulty will come in connecting employers and qualified workers."

About the Author

John McClenahen | Former Senior Editor, IndustryWeek

John S. McClenahen, is an occasional essayist on the Web site of IndustryWeek, the executive management publication from which he retired in 2006. He began his journalism career as a broadcast journalist at Westinghouse Broadcasting’s KYW in Cleveland, Ohio. In May 1967, he joined Penton Media Inc. in Cleveland and in September 1967 was transferred to Washington, DC, the base from which for nearly 40 years he wrote primarily about national and international economics and politics, and corporate social responsibility.

      McClenahen, a native of Ohio now residing in Maryland, is an award-winning writer and photographer. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently An Unexpected Poet (2013), and several books of photographs, including Black, White, and Shades of Grey (2014). He also is the author of a children’s book, Henry at His Beach (2014).

      His photograph “Provincetown: Fog Rising 2004” was selected for the Smithsonian Institution’s 2011 juried exhibition Artists at Work and displayed in the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from June until October 2011. Five of his photographs are in the collection of St. Lawrence University and displayed on campus in Canton, New York.

      John McClenahen’s essay “Incorporating America: Whitman in Context” was designated one of the five best works published in The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies during the twelve-year editorship of R. Barry Leavis of Rollins College. John McClenahen’s several journalism prizes include the coveted Jesse H. Neal Award. He also is the author of the commemorative poem “Upon 50 Years,” celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Wolfson College Cambridge, and appearing in “The Wolfson Review.”

      John McClenahen received a B.A. (English with a minor in government) from St. Lawrence University, an M.A., (English) from Western Reserve University, and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University, where he also pursued doctoral studies. At St. Lawrence University, he was elected to academic honor societies in English and government and to Omicron Delta Kappa, the University’s highest undergraduate honor. John McClenahen was a participant in the 32nd Annual Wharton Seminars for Journalists at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. During the Easter Term of the 1986 academic year, John McClenahen was the first American to hold a prestigious Press Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.

      John McClenahen has served on the Editorial Board of Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies and was co-founder and first editor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown. He has been a volunteer researcher on the William Steinway Diary Project at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and has been an assistant professorial lecturer at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.