As Boris leaves devastated communities in its wake, economists are trying to assess what kind of sums will be needed to put things right.

One easy (if not fail-safe) method is to compare the damage with the after-effects of storms in 2010, when the peak flood tides hit several cities, including Kraków in the south and the capital, Warsaw.

At that time, between $4-5 billion of damage was caused, roughly 1% of the GDP of the country at that time.

After 15 years of rapid growth and EU-funded infrastructure projects, the economic cost of the floods is likely to have grown.

The Polish GDP was worth $0.811 trillion in 2023, according to estimates. Therefore, damage worth 1% of GDP could be just below $9 billion.

The town council of Kłodzko in southwest Poland, so far one of the worst-hit areas, has estimated local damage of around 100 million zlotys ($23 million).

Meanwhile, the Polish roads and motorways authority estimates that in 2010 damage to roads, bridges and flyovers reached $1.1 billion throughout the country. In the floods of the last few days, motorways are so far unaffected, with more disturbance to local roads.

A Bank Santander report forecast there could be a knock-on effect for inflation in the economy if agricultural markets and supply chains are affected by road outages and vehicle damage.