emily, this hasn t been just a weather vaent. it has been an economic event. businesses haven t been able to operate. reporter: hi, gary. it has been such a long week for people. when you see trees like this that toppled and the power lines that came down more than a week ago, it set off a chain reaction so big that the experts, the government and even small businesses say they just haven t been able to add up the total costs yet. what is clear is that as the power comes back on, people are beginning to see just how much they lost. though it only takes an instant for the lights to go out in a storm, things can get darker for days. a chevy chase supermarket just outside washington. disaster hit three days after losing power. a refrigerated trailer compressor blew up and with it the family-owned supermarket s back-up plan. we lost everything in the trailer. then everything in the frozen food case here. basically we ve lost everything in the entire store. reporter: it mean