Wal-Mart's Hurricane Recovery

According to the article "Wal-Mart Bounces Back From Hurricanes," Hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused a total of 281 Wal-Marts to be closed. As of today, only 15 of the stores have yet to reopen. These numbers show that Wal-Mart and probably some other businesses are getting back to how things were before these two storms disrupted life along the Gulf Coast.

In the aftermath of the two storms, the quantity demand of certain products, such as cleaning supplies and nonperishable food items, would have increased. However, the closure of stores, such as Wal-Mart, would have decreased the quantity supplied of the product that was available to the consumers in the time of need. Merchants that were open for business could have charged people higher prices to get goods, such as food and water, because people were desperate. In other words the scarcity of certain products would have caused people to pay higher prices in order to get the product that they wanted.