美東：颶風過後的商機
Post Hurricane Sandy: Businesses Try to Keep Moving

美東：颶風過後的商機

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剛遭遇颶風橫掃的美國東岸，在歷經了接連幾天停電和淹水的窘境後，各方投資者都在觀察市場恢復狀況；而業界和電力公司也盡一切努力修復損害，希望能盡快重回軌道。颶風過後美東的狀況究竟如何？天災後的經濟復甦措施又該如何實行呢？

進入本文前，請先想想以下詞彙的英文怎麼說：

(A)(天災) 肆虐 / (B) 遠距工作 / (C) 煉油廠

Businesses across a broad (A) swath of the East Coast struggled to recover from Hurricane Sandy, even as executives conceded that it would be days, at least, before things returned to normal.

整個美東在歷經了Hurricane Sandy風災肆虐後，正從困境中掙扎著復甦市場景氣。不過，就連政府部門執行長都不得不承認，至少要花好幾天才能讓各行各業恢復正常。

In New York City, banks and other financial services firms predicted that they would (2) be mostly back on their feet when financial markets reopened and customers began to (3) venture out to local branches.

就紐約市來說，在金融市場重新運作後，銀行和金融機構便可回復正常營運；而原本的客戶將可開始出資國內分行。

JPMorgan Chase’s headquarters on Park Avenue and its principal trading floors a few blocks north on Madison Avenue are set to reopen, as are at least 100 hub bank branches in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut that were stocked with extra cash before the storm. About 25,000 employees at JPMorgan Chase (B) worked remotely on the first Monday after Hurricane Sandy, but that figure dropped from 25,000 to 20,000 on the next day as lights went out across the region.

風災前就備好多餘現金的摩根大通，在紐約、紐澤西、康乃迪克有至少100家分行。其位於紐約市公園大道上的總部和總部附近麥迪遜大道上的投資大樓都已準備好重新運作。在颶風過後的第一個星期一，約25,000名摩根大通員工遠距工作；但隨著隔日大停電，能夠遠距上班的員工數量跌至15,000到20,000之間。

For many companies, as for individuals, the big question mark was when power providers and other utilities would be functioning reliably again. More than five million households in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut were without power on the first Tuesday after the storm.

對於其他公司行號來說，此次風災後最大的問題在於水電設備何時能夠穩定運作。就在颶風後的週二，位於紐約、紐澤西、和康乃迪克的住戶，仍有超過五百萬戶停電。

Some retailers rushed to reopen stores and stock them with everything from extra batteries to mops and cleaning supplies. Fuel providers seemed to have escaped the worst of Hurricane Sandy’s wrath. As technicians returned to some idled (C) refineries, their early reports suggested that regional gasoline and fuel supplies would not be seriously affected by the storm.

颶風剛走，零售商就趕著開店；貨品架上備滿電池、拖把等民生必需品和清潔用品。其他像是石油供應商，看起來似乎從這次風災過後的困境中逃過一劫。在技術員趕回停擺的煉油廠之際，報告顯示美東區域的石油和瓦斯供應不會受颶風太大影響。

(3)All told, the lost output from and overall effects of the storm could shave as much as 0.6 percentage points off annualized fourth-quarter economic growth, according to an analysis by IHS Global Insight.

如大家所知，這場颶風造成了些許經濟產量損失。根據環球透視的分析，風災可能會使今年第四季的經濟成長削減百分之零點

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