Jim Cramer: Sandy's Effects Will Be Tremendous

Are we underestimating Hurricane Sandy? Are we doing so because of a total lack of knowledge of the extent of the damage, because we're just plain wrong about how much rebuilding will need to be done? Just this morning, the always-on-his-game Bill Dudley -- the president of the New York Federal Reserve -- relayed a possible recognition that Sandy might be the big one, and that we still haven't been able to grasp the enormity of its effects.

I think he's right. The numbers we have seen have pointed to $36 billion in damage for New Jersey and $33 billion in New York, according to the respective state governors. These may sound like overestimates, but I think they will end up dramatically understating the destruction.

That's because there are whole swaths of Sandy's effects that haven't begun to be measured. In fact, to date the only measurement we've gotten that counts, in my opinion, is this morning's reported shortfall in retail sales from chain stores that have been hurt by the hurricane. Maybe only Amazon(AMZN) was able to capitalize by the shut-in Northeast consumer during a chunk of November.

In fact, I think repairing the damage may cause the entire gross domestic product of the nation to spike. We are beginning to find out that the materials that would have been used for rebuilding by many of the contractors in the Northeast are not usable -- they've been the victims of warehouses that straddled the ports of the states, warehouses that were basically washed away by the storm.

Now, many an article has been written lamenting the lack of insurance for the storm, and there are many people who are struggling to put the pieces together, particularly in the hard-hit Rockaways in Queens, NY and Staten Island, NY. But there are other areas -- high-income areas -- where, insurance or no, the tearing-down is just beginning. Here, the rebuilding will start in earnest when the supplies are replenished, and this is something that might not occur until as late as the second quarter.