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Building Products Ride the Wave In September, Isabel's ill wind blew yet more good to manufacturers of plywood and oriented strand board, who found themselves in the sweet spot of supplying a market with an ever-rising ceiling in the days leading up to the hurricane's landfall -- although demand and price had already been floating up throughout August. On September 18, the day Isabel struck North Carolina, Reuters reported that retail prices for each product had tripled in a matter of months. Reuters, to be sure, sees the boom in demand (and price) primarily as a function of the summer's release of "pent-up" demand for housing. Isabel's function, it appears, was to add an extra nudge to demand while, at the same time, aggravating already significant supply problems. At press time, a long-term assessment of Isabel's impact on the mid-Atlantic forest resource was unavailable, expert consensus being that many of the storm's effects would not be observable for weeks. Overburdened water tables, loaded by a summer of precipitation well in excess of historical norms, set the stage for several months of unstable terrain in the Eastern U.S., until spring leaf-out is able to relieve the load through transpiration. Back to News Forest Resources Association
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