MIAMI – In just 24 days, Charley and Frances have produced the most disruptive hurricane season in Florida history, affecting the lives and livelihoods of three out of every four people in the state.

That’s 13.2 million Floridians – and counting – with Frances expected to sweep over yet more people in the Panhandle on Monday.

The back-to-back hit to tens of thousands of homeowners, not to mention the state’s economy, is staggering.

“There hasn’t been anything like this in Florida or any other state for 50 years,” said Sam Miller, executive vice president of the Florida Insurance Council.

It will takes days, if not weeks, to calculate the physical damage, but Gov. Jeb Bush, for one, was already predicting Frances could easily match the $7 billion toll Charley took on Florida just three weeks ago. When the final assessments are in, the two hurricanes, taken together, could approach the catastrophic losses of Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

While not as intense as Charley, Frances covered virtually the entire state and is much wetter, which will likely increase damage from flooding.

The cost of the two storms is mounting. The Insurance Information Institute estimates Charley’s insured losses at $7.4 billion. Early estimates of Frances’ total range from $2 billion to $10 billion.

Andrew, by contrast, cost the insurance industry some $20 billion in today’s dollars and another $6.5 billion in uninsured losses – making it the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history.

Charley and Frances also will rack up billions in uninsured losses as well.

It is tough to overestimate the impact.

• Ten counties across the middle of the state took direct hurricane-force hits by both storms, including the Orlando area, heart of the state’s vital tourism business. More than 3 million people live in those counties, about a fifth of the state’s population.

• More than half of the state’s population – 9.3 million people – live in areas hit hard enough by Frances alone to seek federal emergency assistance. That’s not counting whatever may happen in coming days in the Panhandle.

• Charley’s approach sparked the largest evacuation in state history with 2 million people fleeing an area that stretched from Naples to Tampa.

The record lasted less than three weeks. As of Sunday, Frances had sent some 2.8 million in 34 counties scurrying for shelter and that will likely grow as the hurricane approaches the Panhandle.

Hurricane Floyd in 1999 forced 1.3 million people out of their homes. The fierce but compact Hurricane Andrew, by comparison, dislodged only 700,000 in 1992.

-Besides the population centers, the storms plowed across groves and farm fields. The counties hit by both storms produce 30 percent of the state’s citrus and about a quarter of the state’s other crops and livestock, including sugar cane, cattle and chickens.

While workers and businesses will suffer financially in coming months, some experts believe Florida’s economy can roll with a one-two punch from the tropics. They argue that, when it comes to economics, natural disasters typically cause short-term pain but long-term gain.

“It’s hard to say it, but it’s actually more of a long-term positive than a negative,” said Mark Vitner, an economist for the Wachovia banking organization who has conducted extensive research on Florida’s economy. “We tap our wealth to rebuild, and we wouldn’t tap it otherwise.”

Some experts believe the rare confluence of tag-team storms crisscrossing the peninsula is unlikely to derail what is, by many measures, the strongest state economy in the nation.

The phenomenon of a region’s economy being boosted by natural catastrophe has been documented in studies. Even Hurricane Andrew produced such a pattern.

After destroying thousands of businesses initially, the rebuilding pushed unemployment down 1.5 percentage points statewide in the following weeks.

But there were harsh localized impacts. The economy in far South Miami-Dade, ground zero, remained largely stagnant for nearly a decade until a recent building boom.

“Obviously, there’s some interruption of business,” said David Denslow, an economist at the University of Florida. “But the challenge isn’t nearly as great as with Andrew, and I would look for a speedier recovery.”

His optimism is based partly on the fact that the hurricanes hadn’t destroyed crucial infrastructure, such as Orlando’s amusement parks, the Cape Canaveral space complex or tech companies clustered around Melbourne.

Real estate, he believes, will only suffer temporary setbacks.

“That is really valuable beachfront property, and it won’t be abandoned,” he said.

Then again, hurricane season is barely into prime time.

“The scary thing is that the early signs show Ivan may be out there,” said Miller of the Florida Insurance Council.