I remember after Hurricane Andrew, I went down to Homestead to help with some clean up with Friends and stayed a little longer helping others with my chain saw and trailer. I remember the local scrap yards went from paying about 50 cents a pound for aluminum to 4 cents a pound overnight. Several guys then parked semi trucks down there and bought the stuff before it got to the scrap yard paying much better prices. They then just trucked it up to Georgia and doubled their investment. Those guys would make several trips a week.
There were untold tons of Florida rooms, carports and awnings that had been blown everywhere.

So ultimately the scrap yards lost out on that bonanza. They have price gouging laws that cover that now too.