Before she hit New Orleans, Katrina wobbled and twisted her way across the Gulf of Mexico, giving authorities several days to prepare for her inevitable crossing of the coastline.

Then after devastating large areas of Louisiana and Mississippi, Katrina left the world wondering what it all meant.

Did Katrina’s trail of tragedy mean the world oil price will stay higher for longer, or the US economy will dive into recession, drying up oil demand and the oil price. Or will the rebuilding of New Orleans save the US (and the world) from a recession caused by the high oil price?

The correct answer to those three questions, and any others you can think of, is that nobody, not even Slugcatcher, knows the answers.

On that score it’s a bit like any man trying to read the mind of a woman – which results in failure, every time.

But, if The Slug was a betting man he would have his money that this disaster could actually avert a recession, because there’s one thing he’s learned over the years and that is that disasters always look worst in the first few days, and that people, and industries, have a remarkable ability to recover.

In the Gulf of Mexico, for starters, there have been breathless reports of 30 rigs and platforms being lost. Bad as this sounds, it leaves unanswered the question of how many were untouched.

The Slug reckons hundreds of platforms and rigs rode out Katrina, and are now cranking back up to normal production.

Onshore there has been horrific film footage of man’s inhumanity to man. But, once again, The Slug reckons that a lot of this was isolated to the worst areas of a city well-known for its underclass and low-key war between rival gangs.

Out in the industrial heartland, far from the human suffering, there is a big mopping up job underway, refineries are being switched back on, oil is flowing and business is returning to normal.

None of what The Slug says is meant to downplay the significance of what happened last week. Katrina was a savage wake-up call to the problem of building a city, and heavy industry, in a hurricane alley.

But readers with reasonable memories can think back just 10 years to the devastation of the Japanese city of Kobe in January, 1995, after that city was struck by an earthquake.

At the time there were daily reports of the crisis it would cause to industries around the world.

Only it didn’t.

Kobe recovered. It was re-built. It still sits in the middle of an earthquake-prone region – and life goes on.

History, that forgotten subject which engineers and other oil types, flunked at school is the lens we need to look through to envisage how New Orleans, and the Gulf oil industry, will recover from Katrina.

By looking at past disasters that we can see how quickly recovery takes hold.

But if there are issues about Katrina which have genuine long-term consequences they can be found in two areas:

Firstly, in the potential for long-term disruption to refining capacity and natural gas supply.

Secondly, in the the way American society was exposed as being so horribly uncaring – for the whole world to see.

The refining question is very serious. From what The Slug has been reading, major refineries operated by Chevron and Shell will face significant cuts to output for at least two months.

Bloomberg reported yesterday that daily gulf oil output was 1.18 million barrels a day below normal, a reduction of 79%.

Natural gas supply will be even harder hit because of flooding of onshore gas processing plants, with prices likely to continue rising across the US.

For a country already facing a refining shortfall, Katrina could not have come at a worse time – which also goes to the question of what oil industry senior executives have doing with their mountainous profits from high oil prices. Certainly not investing in refineries; they have preferred to return capital and pay dividends.

This also goes to the question of why weren’t the US oil industry and the federal and state governents ready for Katrina. After all, they had a week to prepare. Just how effective is President Bush's Department for Homeland Security?

This poses serious questions about leadership and the protection of vulnerable citizens in a country that seeks to lecture the world on moral values.

Katrina has delivered the stunning equivalent of a slap across a nation’s face.