Sandy costs New York $200 mn a day

The aftermath of superstorm Sandy is costing New York City up to $200 million a day in permanently lost economic activity, including everything from the sale of a burger to corporate mergers and other Wall Street deals, the city's comptroller said on Wednesday.

New York City generates up to $2 billion a day from various economic activities on average. But the damage to Big Apple may end up costing 10 per cent or more of that forever, Comptroller John Liu said.

Sandy made landfall on the New Jersey coast on Monday, leaving massive flooding, power outages, crippled transportation systems and 64 people dead in its wake.

The storm's long-term impact on the world's top financial capital is still unclear, but the city should eventually recover much of that.

Over the last couple days, economic activity is down to about 20 per cent of usual. It's a huge drop. And it's probably not going to get back to 100 per cent for some time, Liu said.

Based on past history, most of that economic activity is not completely lost, it's just postponed. We don't believe the permanently lost economic activity will exceed $1 billion.

FEDERAL AID, INSURANCE MONEY

But there are other costs.

The city that never sleeps is also losing several million dollars a day in tax revenue, Liu said. New York City has also paid $29.2 million in emergency preparations to cover heavy equipment, manpower, transportation, ambulettes, ready to eat meals, oxygen tanks, construction equipment, structural engineers and more. By comparison, the city spent $12 million on these emergency contracts for Hurricane Irene in 2011, Liu added.

Sandy may have caused $10 billion to $20 billion in total economic damage, with $5 billion to $10 billion in insured losses. Between 30 per cent and 40 per cent of those costs are in New York City, according to EQECAT, a catastrophic risk consultant to insurers.

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