One week after Hurricane Rita came ashore at the Texas-Louisiana border, it's becoming clear that this storm, while causing significant damage, was not nearly as devastating as its predecessor Hurricane Katrina. What's not so clear is the longer-term impact these twin natural disasters will have on the national economy—or for our industry specifically.

The package-printing and converting fields are bound to experience both significant energy-cost increases as well as material shortages in the coming weeks. Supplies will be tight due not only to disruptions along the Gulf Coast but because of low oil reserves and the priority given to home heating this winter. Manufacturers "in the Northeast and Midwest will be particularly affected," says Ben Cooper, executive vice president at the Printing Industries of America (Sewickley, PA).

Already, some of the numbers are on the rise. According to Purchasing Magazine, the price of natural gas to industrial customers was up 8.8 percent in September. Propane costs rose at a similar rate, and electricity was up 9.9 percent. Want to get your products to market? On-highway diesel fuel increased almost 15 percent last month.

Energy is one thing; raw materials for film-based packaging are another. It certainly didn't help that 28 large and 12 smaller refineries all sat in the path of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The already-constricted market for polyethylene is especially hard-hit. At one point last month, two-thirds of the North American capacity for linear low-density PE was down or reduced, says Houston-based consultancy Chemical Market Associates, and more than half of the high-density PE production capacity was affected. Filmmakers and vertically-integrated converters are having to live off inventories or be placed on fractional allocations of their normal orders.

And you can't print packaging without inks and other consumables. A string of major suppliers announced price increases recently, and while all weren't directly tied to the effects of the hurricanes, they certainly didn't help. A quick rundown: Dow Corning's release-coating lines up 5–7 percent; Loparex's release papers and films up 4–6 percent; Flink Ink and Sun Chemical's packaging inks up anywhere from 6–10 percent along with per-lb surcharges.

It's not a pretty picture. Solutions are rather few and far between. But if the 2005 hurricane season taught us all (no matter where we live) one thing, it's to be better prepared in the future. What's your backup plan for 2006 and beyond? One way or another, higher prices are here to stay.