To make sense of this extraordinary backdrop and learn where the market is headed, Barron’s checked in with Ivy Zelman, executive vice president of the real estate research firm Zelman & Associates, a unit of Walker & Dunlop.

A: Natural disasters can occur no matter where someone lives. For some people, it could be a hurricane; for others, it could be a flood, earthquake, tornado or blizzard. While laws vary from state to state, the guidelines for dealing with the cleanup are consistent.

Hurricane Milton's destruction was still emerging across Florida after it made landfall Wednesday night as a Category 3 storm with powerful winds and flooding rains. The big picture: There were widespread outages into Thursday morning from the hurricane,