[corin_]

> but the reporting has a breathless tone

Well, yes and no. Apologies for reducing your logic to the absurd, but if Iran dropped a nuclear bomb on NYC tomorrow then lot's of people would die, basically exactly what you would expect to happen if that bomb was dropped there. Does that mean everyone who treats it as a big deal (in sarcastic terms: "with a breathless tone") is making a big deal out of nothing?

Yes, with the details that there will be a flood, and that x% of HDDs are made there, and that the flood will shut down production for X months, then prices rising are exactly what you would expect. The reason for it being newsworthy and to some unexpected is that we didn't know the flood would happen, and even after they did plenty of people had no idea, having never had need to think about it, that it happened where so many HDDS are made. Hence why being told that, and therefore what it means, is unexpected.