Here are some questions that I do not know the answer to: How much economic damage will Hurricane Harvey cause? Given that 11 trillion gallons of rain have fallen on Houston, will Houston's long run economy be injured? How quickly do modern cities bounce back from natural disasters?
More closely related to my research; it appears that this disaster's death count (and death rate per million people) is low (relative to Sandy and Katrina). Searching the Internet, I see that 5 people have died in the storm. An economist would ask, over the typical weekend in a large city such as Houston, how many people die. The difference between these two numbers is the extra death caused by Harvey. For example, were there fewer violent shooting deaths this weekend in Houston because of the heavy rain? My 2005 work suggests that as our information technology and income rises, and our ability to invest and efficiently deploy first responders increases that the mortality cost of natural disasters will continue to shrink.
Unlike irreversible death, all other losses can be reversed through new investments. These investments will actually stimulate the Houston economy as the old decaying capital stock is replaced. Each building that was damaged was on a replacement cycle (capital is durable but only lives say 70 years), this disaster simply accelerates this replacement cycle and if the new housing stock is more sturdy then the next disaster will cause less damage. See my 2017 paper with Devin Bunten. Interesting distributional research will study whose homes were injured in the flooding? I see that Rice University is basically fine. Are the homes that have flooded located in lower middle class areas? If these homes sell for $200,000 each and and each has suffered a 10% loss in value due to flooding then this is a significant income effect for the lower middle class. Such distributional effects of natural disasters would be a fascinating research agenda.
Other interest groups will now grow rich in rebuilding Houston.Contractors, builders, construction guys will all now have a boom in demand for their scarce services. Watch the wage premium they will earn. Young men will now move to Houston to help with the rebuilding effort.
Will the refineries be crippled? How long will it take them to boost production? Will the oil companies claim they are crippled in order to exert market power in the oil market? Keep an eye on that.
How will the insurance industry be affected? Did the sellers of home insurance in Houston hold diversified portfolios? Did they encourage self protection investments to reduce flood damage? Will national tax payers bail out these insurers?