Nearly half-million relocated after Katrina
WASHINGTON – Hurricanes Katrina and Rita drove an estimated 450,000 people from their communities along the Gulf Coast last year, but in the storms’ wake Hispanics moved in – perhaps 100,000 or more.
New government estimates show a region decimated by population losses four months after the storms. Orleans Parish in Louisiana lost 279,000 people, and nearby St. Bernard Parish lost 61,000, or 95 percent of its residents.
Hispanics, however, swept in by the tens of thousands, according to estimates released Tuesday by the Census Bureau.
Jose Rios, a Mexican immigrant from Eagle Point, Texas, runs a food trailer near a spot in New Orleans where dozens of immigrants wait each morning to be picked up for a day’s work.
“Every time you look up on the roofs, the guys doing the hard work, they’re all Hispanic,” said Rios, 36.
The Census Bureau released population estimates Tuesday for 117 counties and parishes along the Gulf Coast for the period before hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and for Jan. 1, about four months afterward. The counties – all in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas – had been designated for hurricane assistance by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The data showed 40 counties and parishes losing a total of 450,000 residents. The other 77 counties and parishes – most of them farther inland – added 200,000 people.
Census officials cautioned that there weren’t many people to count in some areas four months after the storm, creating larger margins of error than in most census studies. Also, the region has changed since January, with more residents returning to some areas.
Among the weaknesses in the data: Only people living in households were counted, meaning that hurricane refugees living in hotels and shelters were excluded. That skewed some population counts.
For example, the estimates showed that Harris County, Texas, home to Houston, grew by 93,000 people. The city and county have consistently placed the population influx at 150,000 people.
“We know it says 90,000, but the number of people in the housing program alone exceeded that,” said Frank Michel, spokesman for Houston Mayor Bill White.
In New Orleans, demographer Greg Rigamer estimated the city has rebounded to at least 221,000 people since January, or about half the size it was before the storms.
“The analogy I like to use is that it’s like a stock price in the middle of the day. It’s a very dynamic and fluid situation. People are continuing to return and the availability of housing and utilities has a bearing on that,” said Rigamer, head of GCR & Associates Inc., a New Orleans consulting firm.