Has Hurricane Helped Your Business?

Will you be replacing client's fried gear as a result of Irene? Adding surge protection and generators to their systems?

Was Irene your friend this hurricane season?

By Julie Jacobson, August 30, 2011

It may be crass to rejoice over the damage wreaked by Hurricane Irene, but there's no denying that some dealers will benefit from the disaster.

Integrator David Garfinkle of Creative Home Systems in New Jersey tells CE Pro that lightning was "in my favor for a change."

He says that one local homeowner took a hit that wiped out the bus on a Vantage home automation system: "So I'm now replacing/upgrading everything on the bus."

The original install, he explains, was "amateur hour for sure. This time of course I told him he has to surge-protect everything."

Do you have Irene to thank? Share your stories in the comments section below.

RELATED: Hurricane Irene Gives Compelling Case for Energy Monitoring

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Article Topics

Blogs · Home Automation and Control · Lighting · Power Protection and Management · All topics

About the Author

Julie Jacobson, Editor-at-large, CE Pro

Julie Jacobson is co-founder of EH Publishing and currently spends most of her time writing for CE Pro, mostly in the areas of home automation, networked A/V and the business of home systems integration. She majored in Economics at the University of Michigan, earned an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin, and has never taken a journalism class in her life. Julie is a washed-up Ultimate Frisbee player with the scars to prove it. Follow her on Twitter @juliejacobson.

2 Comments (displayed in order by date/time)

Posted by Dwight on 08/30 at 11:21 AM

It isn’t too crass, but it is totally incorrect. Sure there may be some person here or there who personally benefits, but in general there is never any net benefit to an economy over events like this.

Go read Bastiat about the Broken Window.

http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html

Posted by Julie Jacobson on 08/30 at 11:27 AM

Thanks for pointing this out, Dwight. Totally with you. From my favorite economists ...

http://cafehayek.com/2011/08/the-microeconomics-of-the-broken-window-fallacy.html

http://cafehayek.com/2011/08/open-letter-to-peter-morici.html