Rebuilding, Without Financial Records

"In this day and age when credit card customers are hard to come by, you want to make sure you make the effort to retain the ones you've got," Robertson said. " . . . Customers who are affected are walking around with multiple cards in their pocket and the last thing any of those [card companies] want to do is put themselves at a disadvantage versus their competitors."

But despite all this relief, the outlook for many families and businesses in the area hit by the hurricane is for a long and difficult recovery.

Much of the damage was and is being caused by flooding, a peril that is not covered in normal homeowners insurance. The federal government offers coverage but many of those eligible never apply.

Further, although it is required by most lenders in flood-prone areas, mandated coverage is often limited to $250,000 -- which is the federal policies' limit for a residence -- or to 80 percent of the replacement cost of the home, whichever is smaller.

Thus, many of the families who have coverage will find themselves responsible for 20 percent of the cost -- $30,000 on a $150,000 home -- if the house is a total loss and they want to rebuild.

And many of the houses will be total losses. Now immersed in what amounts to sewer water up to the roof, many houses may remain under water for weeks or even months. Insulation, wiring, ductwork and other systems will likely be ruined, said William Coulbourne, a structural engineer with URS Corp. in Gaithersburg.

While high-rises could be stripped down to the concrete, power-washed and then refitted, most houses would be much harder to clean up even if they remained structurally sound.

Even once-routine things such as personal and business records will provide months of headaches.

Computer systems will help some. Many institutions, such as banks and insurers, in the hurricane area were able to transmit records to safe backup facilities where they will remain accessible over the Internet.

Individuals and small businesses, too, could do the same, but experience in Florida and elsewhere suggests that many don't.

Many families and businesses "are going to be in a world of hurt" trying to reconstruct their financial lives, said Skip Honigstein of the Orlando chapter of SCORE -- formerly the Service Corps of Retired Executives -- which advises small businesses.

In a disaster such as Katrina, "some stuff is just going to be gone forever, and I don't know how people are going to reconstruct it," said Honigstein, who counseled business owners in the Orlando area after last year's hurricanes there.

However, he said, banks and accounting firms and government agencies such as the IRS, assuming they weren't washed away, too, can help people piece things together. Taxpayers can get a copy of an earlier year's return from the IRS; banks have lists of checks written; credit card companies can get you your payment history.

"A lot of detective work" is involved, Honigstein said, but families and businesses have little choice but to do it.