By Anne D'Innocenzio
The Associated Press

NEW YORK - The big blackout cost an estimated $4 billion to $6 billion, no more than a ripple in the economy and mostly temporary at that, economists say.

As disasters go, it won't make the Top 10 and probably not even the Top 20 in terms of insured property losses, according to Insurance Services Office Inc., a Jersey City, N.J.-based advisory company.

The company defines a catastrophe as a single incident or series of related incidents - man-made or natural - that cause insured property losses totaling at least $25 million and affect a significant number of policyholders and insurers.

The blackout is expected to reach at least that $25 million level but fall far short of the $2.2 billion price tag for the April 2001 tornadoes in the Midwest and South and the March 1993 winter storm in the Northeast, which tied for No. 9. The costliest disaster on the list was the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks at $20.7 billion, followed by Hurricane Andrew in 1992 at $19.9 billion and the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake at $15.2 billion.

"It is a minor nuisance, as opposed to a major disaster," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor. He added that the closures were too short to have a significant effect on overall manufacturing and the retailing industry.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com, said most of the losses would be recouped in the next few days and weeks, and Michael P. Niemira, vice president of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Inc., estimated that merchants made up two-thirds of their $30 million lost business on Saturday.

There were even some winners.

Liquidation.com - an online liquidator that sells excess goods from retailers - experienced a surge in goods brought online this past weekend.

Home Depot Inc., the nation's largest home improvement chain, and its second-ranked rival, Lowe's Cos. Inc., both did big business in generators.

But plenty of others suffered.

"The biggest losers are the ones that have been losing for the past three years ... the cities, airlines and small retailers," Zandi said.

The state and local governments, particularly in New York, took the biggest hit.

New York City comptroller's office estimated that losses topped $1 billion, including $800 million in lost gross city product - half of that in the first 24 hours. The figure also includes $250 million in frozen and perishable food that had to be dumped, spokesman Michael Egbert said.

The blackout cost the city's 22,000 eateries alone between $75 million to $100 million in wasted food and lost business, the New York State Restaurant Association calculated.

Broadway lost $1 million worth of tickets for shows canceled after the lights went out Thursday, and Jed Bernstein, president of League of American Theatres and Producers, estimated that theaters will only recoup about half those sales.

"Broadway shows are thinly capitalized compared to other industries," Bernstein said. "Any unforeseen loss is potentially damaging to shows."

In addition to the comptroller's figure, Mayor Michael Bloomberg added an estimated $40 million in lost tax revenue and $10 million in overtime pay for city workers, including extra police officers on patrol Thursday night and sanitation crews that worked through the weekend to pick up spoiled food.

S&P's Wyss estimated that New York State, excluding the city, lost another $1 billion and the other affected areas outside New York another $3 billion.

Wyss figured that the areas affected by the blackout, including New Jersey and Connecticut and the upper Midwest, account for about $3 trillion of the nation's $10 trillion economy.

Michigan state officials remained uncertain of the extent of the effect there, but economists estimated that it will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In hard-hit Cleveland, officials hoped to release cost estimates by Wednesday morning.

The airline industry, which lost full days of travel, was in the midst of assessing the damage. Officials declined to comment on costs, but Ray Neidl, who follows airlines for Blaylock & Partners, estimated the loss at $10 million to $20 million, "similar to what a very bad snowstorm would be."

Some airlines were affected more than others.

At Northwest Airlines, 405 flights were canceled Thursday, Friday and Saturday, company spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch said. American Airlines was forced to cancel 483 flights.

But Southwest had to cancel only 47 flights, and spokesman Ed Stewart said the "impact was negligible."

The Associated Press' Sara Kugler in New York, James Prichard in Detroit, and Josh Freed in Minneapolis contributed to this report.