HONOLULU -- Hurricane Katrina is expected to have a big impact on the cost and availability of building materials as hurricane victims begin to rebuild. That's bad news for a booming home building industry on the mainland and in Hawaii.

Construction sources told KITV 4 Island Television News that Hawaii will start to experience some building material supply problems when Hurricane Katrina rescue and clean up ends and rebuilding starts.

Construction companies said the immediate financial impact they feel now is from increases in the cost of fuel to bring in their building materials. However, they said there is no doubt a bigger impact from Katrina is around the corner.

Katrina is more damaging than most other hurricanes because of the flooding. Homes that have been soaked and ruined are going to need millions of sheets of plywood, gypsum board and roofing materials

Construction sites across the country will have to scramble as supplies are diverted for hurricane repairs, even projects thousands of miles away in Hawaii.

"We are taking a look at all of our supplies and making sure we can buy or lock in prices now. I think all of the businesses here in Hawaii will do that," Castle and Cooke President Harry Saunders said.

Saunders said materials for the 400 new homes at Mililani Mauka have already been purchased or they are on their way.

"I would say we are good for another three or four months," he said.

"The impact here in Hawaii will not be as bad on framing materials because most new houses here are framed in steel, whereas the houses in the Katrina area are still wood framed," said Jim Byxbee of Homeworks Construction.

Byxbee said products like concrete, electrical materials and carpeting could become more difficult to get.

"It could hold up our jobs. And we don't need our jobs held up. We have a concrete strike a year and a half a go and we just got rolling again. I think it is going to impact the length of the jobs," he said.

All of this is happening when the cost of fuel to import and transport Hawaii's building supplies is increasing daily, driving up costs further.