The storms and epic flooding that hit Houston will likely be the most expensive in American history, but the city's economic girth positions it well for a full recovery, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Houston is the nation's fourth-largest city by population, and its economy is roughly the size of Sweden's, the Journal reported.
Also going for Houston is a robust oil and gas industry, one of the largest medical centers in the world, and healthcare and education industries that were the city's largest employers in 2014, the WSJ reported.
It's going to take a lot of time and it's going to be slow and painful, but Houston will rebound.
"This could be a speed bump, but this is not going to derail the Houston economy," Adam Kamins, an economist for Moody's Analytics, told the WSJ.
Kamins told the WSJ that economic output would be flat for 2 months following the storm, but that growth would eventually pick up again.
Houston is positioned much better to recover than New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
"New Orleans was hurt because people didn't come back," James Richardson, an economics professor at Louisiana State University, told the Journal. "We're still not back to the pre-Katrina population."
Kamins said the real "economic tragedy" of Hurricane Harvey will be suffered by Houston homeowners, staring down up to $40 billion in damage to homes and property, not likely covered by insurance, the WSJ reported.
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