Evaluating Direct and Indirect Economic Outcomes of the 2008 Iowa Weather-Related Disasters

How did the floods of 2008 and other coincidental natural disasters affect the well being of Iowa’s households, businesses, and the governments they depend on?  State of Iowa officials have diligently compiled descriptions of the damages and counts of the commercial and household victims, the value of the losses, to the degree they were reported, and the broad array of public costs that have been allocated in response to the floods of 2008.  Notwithstanding the detailed quantification of the disaster consequences, there is still no one number that describes the full impact of the events of 2008 for the state’s economy, nor should readers expect one. This research seeks to fill some of the gaps in understanding the local, regional, and statewide economic consequences of the disasters of 2008.  In this report we evaluate sets of population, unemployment, employment, business firms, and trade patterns over time in an attempt to discern the household consumption and business productivity disruptions caused by the weather disasters of 2008.