Agarwal, S., Choudhury, S. P., Fan, M., Klapper, L. (2026). Real-time economic disruption and recovery from Atlantic hurricanes across the US. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-78686-4

Climate projections indicate substantial increases in hurricane activity under continued warming, yet how local economies adjust to hurricanes in real time remains poorly understood. Using daily transaction data from 7,987 US ZIP codes exposed to 21 Atlantic hurricanes between 2017 and 2024, we examine aggregate merchant sales and consumer spending to quantify disruption and test for substitution across locations and channels. Hurricanes cause losses equivalent to about two days of typical sales, with limited offsetting substitution and recovery to pre-hurricane levels within ten days. Economic disruption increases with physical damage, evacuation restrictions, and infrastructure outages, while storm category alone is a poor predictor of short-run economic impacts. Disruption and recovery patterns also vary across industries, merchant types, and sales channels. These findings provide real-time evidence on how local economies adjust to hurricanes and help identify the conditions under which short-run economic disruption is most severe.

Related research news article: Hurricanes Cost Local Economies Two Days of Sales but Recover Within Ten Days