Blackout damage for U.S. estimated at up to $6B US

[Nambe]

NEW YORK (AP)

The big blackout caused an estimated $4 billion to $6 billion US in losses, no more than a ripple in the economy and mostly temporary at that, economists say.

As disasters go, it won't make the Top 10 and probably not even the Top 20 in terms of insured property losses, according to Insurance Services Office Inc., a Jersey City, N.J.-based advisory company. The company defines a catastrophe as a single incident or series of related incidents - man- made or natural - that cause insured property losses totalling at least $25 million and affecting a significant number of policyholders and insurers.

The blackout is expected to reach that $25-million level, but fall far short of the $2.2-billion price tag for the April 2001 tornadoes in the Midwest and South and the March 1993 winter storm in the Northeast, which tied for No. 9. -

State and local governments, particularly in New York, took the biggest hit.

The New York City comptroller's office estimated that losses topped $1 billion, including $800 million in lost gross city product - half of that in the first 24 hours. The figure also includes $250 million in frozen and perishable food that had to be dumped, spokesman Michael Egbert said. -

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