Not Seeing Much Of A Slowdown Here...And We Had A Hurricane!

Ok, so we are now in the middle of the Christmas shopping season during one of the worst economic times in our nation's history, and I am still having to plan my routes to avoid the mall and freeway traffic.  I really don't see any difference.  The stores seem to be as busy as they always have been during this time of year AND we had a devastating hurricane just a few months ago.  Is the media just trying to instill fear in us, or is this area relatively insulated from the general economic downturn of the country?  The Houston area definitely did not experience the housing boom several areas saw, so there has been nothing to bust.  However, this area is also highly dependent on energy.  It will be interesting to see if the drop in oil prices has a trickle down effect on the economy here.  Will the experience be similar to the early 1980's when oil prices dropped and this area was decimated?  I have a feeling that the Houston economy is much more diversified now than it was then.  Houstonians are resilient folks and if we can handle Ike as well as we did, we can weather this storm too.