Vital Supplies Scarce In Wake Of Hurricane As companies prepare to rebuild, they struggle to gauge cost of parts, labor.(INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT)

Byline: ALAN R. ELLIOT

Tall timber and gale force winds are a lousy combination. In Louisiana -- a state with forests on half of its 28 million acres of land -- the mix was devastating.

Katrina leveled an estimated 1.4 billion board feet of Louisiana loblolly, longleaf and slash pine. That amounts to 150% of the state's average annual softwood harvest, according to associate state forester Cyril LeJeune. Damage to standing oak, ash and hickory was estimated near 1.1 billion board feet.

"That's probably six to eight times the state's average harvest of hardwood," said LeJeune.

Damage reported in Mississippi forests was even more extensive. As logging crews dig into massive timber salvage operations, wood supplies across the South are expected to surge.

That's brought a mixed bag to the region. In the short term, lumber supplies may be tight and prices higher. In the longer term, the windfall could drive down the price of lumber needed to rebuild Gulf Coast communities.

The downed timber is one in a complex palette of economic factors splashed across this year's post-hurricane South. The region's construction industry faces initial property damage estimates that are vastly larger than those that followed Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and last year's four major hurricanes.