LAT: Evacuees of Hurricane Katrina Resettle Along a Racial Divide

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Evacuees of Hurricane Katrina Resettle Along a Racial Divide
Hurricane Katrina may have emptied whole sections of New Orleans, but it hasn't set in motion the great national diaspora that was widely foreseen. Instead, the vast majority of displaced households are staying close to their former homes.

By Tomas Alex Tizon and Doug Smith, Times Staff Writers


Hurricane Katrina may have emptied whole sections of New Orleans, but it hasn't set in motion the great national diaspora that was widely foreseen. Instead, the vast majority of displaced households are staying close to their former homes, postal records show.

A Times analysis of address changes after the hurricane also highlights the metropolitan area's sharp distinctions of class and race. Poor blacks from the city were more likely to land farther away in places much different from home. In many cases, those evacuees stayed wherever government-chartered buses or planes stopped.

Evacuees from the suburbs, mostly middle-class whites, tended to find housing closer by in areas similar to their neighborhoods, which minimized the disruption to their lives and left them in a better position to return as soon as circumstances allow.

Despite the initial alarm over a massive migration that would irreversibly scatter the city's population across the 50 states, only a small percentage has landed more than a day's drive — about 300 miles — from New Orleans. Fifty-nine percent found new housing without leaving the storm-damaged area....

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The greater distance from home and their lack of financial and social resources will make it more difficult for poor people to return, whereas middle-class residents who want to go back home are more likely to be able to afford it. What this could portend for the rebuilding of New Orleans is a city with radically different demographics....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-migration12dec12,0,4750051,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines