Counting the financial toll of [Hurricane] Irene will take time, but Kinetic Analysis Corp, a consulting firm, tentatively put it at up to $7bn (£4.26bn) billion nationally, with insured losses of between $3bn and $4bn, reports the Independent.
Some of the high price tag arose from measures ordered ahead of the storm that turned out not to have been necessary, the report continued. In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg at one point ordered 370,000 residents to evacuate from low-lying areas.
"I would make the same decisions again without hesitation," the Mayor said when he was pressed to defend those early decisions. "We're just not going to take any risk with people's lives, and the best scenario possible is you take the precautions and it turns out they're not needed."