Florida resident here, and wow. I can see two butterflies right away from this. First, I think it's pretty much certain at this point that Gore is gonna win the 2000 Presidential election, given Florida's infamous role in deciding that race. Here, the success of the Floyd relief effort is undoubtedly going to tip the state into the Democratic column.
Second, as someone who held an annual pass to Universal Orlando until this past November, and knows a thing or two about the parks in Central Florida (though I can't call myself an expert), I second everyone who's been suggesting that butterflies are gonna clobber Orlando tourism hard. The paint was still drying on Universal's Islands of Adventure, and much of it is gonna be a total loss as it's rebuilt. (I also think it goes without saying that Halloween Horror Nights IX is officially canceled.) On the other hand, Disney doesn't get off so easy either, as they spent the '90s pouring money into new attractions at Disney World during the Eisner era (especially Disney-MGM Studios and the Animal Kingdom, the latter of which opened the year prior) that have also taken heavy damage in the storm. With such huge investments at both parks that have gone up in smoke, I see both Disney World and Universal Orlando falling into Dork Ages in the early '00s as they struggle to rebuild. It'll be like the post-9/11 tourism slump that hammered the Orlando economy, only on a greater scale given that the cause of this slump was something that happened in their own backyard.
The only question is which theme park is gonna be seen as having fallen harder. Honestly? My money's on Disney World taking a harder hit, because the larger resort is gonna cost more to rebuild, because the Walt Disney Company relied on Disney World far more than Universal Studios relied on Universal Orlando, and most importantly, because this couldn't have happened at a worse time for the Walt Disney Company. The Disney Renaissance was coming to an end around 1999 in OTL, and I don't see why it shouldn't in TTL either. In fact, Floyd may well be seen in hindsight as having played some role in ending TTL's Renaissance; any film that Disney was working on at their Orlando animation studio has likely undergone a serious delay in production, one that's bound to impact the quality of the finished product. This is only gonna play into the rise of Pixar and computer animation in general in the '00s. Disney as a whole is gonna spend at least the early '00s in a world of hurt, with the Renaissance period ending and their lucrative Orlando resort in need of what's likely to be a lot of money in refurbishment. Their rise into the entertainment juggernaut that they are today has almost certainly been butterflied.
Universal, however, might smell blood in the water. Having to rebuild a resort like Universal Orlando that was still finding its footing is gonna hurt their bottom line far less than having to rebuild a well-established mega-resort like Walt Disney World that was both far more lucrative and formed a bigger chunk of not only its competitor's profits, but its identity. Plus, the Orlando resort hadn't yet become Universal's flagship theme park; the Hollywood studio park still was. All told, Universal's in a far better position to get its resort back up and running at something close to normal operation (just in time for the 10th anniversary celebration, at that) than Disney is, and they are going to recognize that, especially if Floyd marks the beginning of serious long-term problems at Disney.
