Each year, natural disasters cause massive amounts of damages around the world. As the construction industry plays an important role in almost every aspect of mitigation and recovery efforts, a high priority will be to identify ways in which the industry is affected by hurricanes and rebounds afterward. The disruption of building construction is discussed and the statistical relationship between hurricane landfalls and observed changes in new building permits at the county level is investigated. The result shows that the storm can have either temporary or permanent impact on a community but not both. The level of construction activities is lowered in some counties in the sample following a hurricane landfall but quickly recovers to the pre-storm norm. In contrast, the permanent impact shifts the mean value of the time series and result in lasting losses in future years. Such an observed disparity could be used to distinguish resilient communities from less resilient ones. Furthermore, a method is also provided to estimate the present value of permanent impact.
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