RALEIGH – One consequence of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina is an upswing in business at North Carolina’s state-owned ports at Morehead City and Wilmington.

No, don’t worry. This is not another one of those foolish “there’s a silver lining” commentaries I’ve seen in recent days. You know, the ones that have to be filed under Broken Window Fallacy – asserting that natural disasters are economic blessings in disguise because they pump money into construction and other recovery-related businesses. Breaking windows, or in this case demolishing and submerging then, is hardly a recipe for economic growth. The money used to repair the windows is money that can’t be spent on something more productive.

My observation is simply that some industries or businesses benefit at the expense of others when natural disasters strike. The window manufacturer gets money that would have been spent on, say, a new computer system or a corporate-training program. The window installer gets the service call that a carpet cleaner would have. And so on.

Quite apart from the importance played in fossil fuel production, New Orleans and other Gulf Coast ports devastated by Katrina form one of the nation’s major economic arteries. Agricultural produce and other goods flow down the Mississippi River to be exported. Consumer goods and commodities arrive at the ports and move up the Mississippi or along highways and railroads throughout the United States. Businesses are already responding to the closure of these ports by rerouting goods to other entry and exit points.

Morehead City and Wilmington are among the recipients of the rerouted inventory, according to an Associated Press report:

Two ships scheduled to leave a portion of their rubber cargo in North Carolina before going on to New Orleans were forced to push off their entire shipments of more than 24,000 tons each at Morehead City. That’s a quarter of the port’s rubber tonnage for all of last year.

The Panama-flagged Bright Laker skipped a stop in New Orleans to chug on to Wilmington, where it arrived Wednesday with 12,000 tons of wire rod used in steel-belted tires and steel coils for auto bodies. . .

Longtime boosters of North Carolina’s relatively small ports may be tempted to smile a bit at this turn of events, but in addition to representing no overall economic boon, the increased business at the state ports doesn’t change the fundamental problem: they are not competitive. Highway and railroad access to the ports remains insufficient. Sea access to Wilmington is, too.

If the Gulf ports remain closed for an extended period, it might make sense to invest significant resources in making the Morehead City and Wilmington ports competitive, but that should be done by profit-seeking firms – not by state taxpayers. Let private businesses decide whether and how to replace Katrina’s very broken windows.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.