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Ten Years after Katrina: African Americans in New Orleans and the Evacuation Divide* aka Poisoning Houston Texas.

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It’s been ten years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf 
Coast. Katrina’s flooding and destruction in New Orleans was 
made worse by a levee system that failed and an ineffective 
evacuation plan that left thousands of residents stranded in the 
wake of the storm. In 2005, as Katrina approached New Orleans, 
many residents did not have access to a motor vehicle and were 
dependent on public transportation or government evacuation 
plans. In his Fivethirtyeight column, Ben Casselman has 
explained how the composition of New Orleans’ population has 
changed in the decade since Katrina. In this post I compare the 
most recent data on New Orleans residents’ access to motor 
vehicles to the situation in 2005 and to cities along the Gulf 
Coast that face the highest risk of a hurricane. Although a 
substantially higher fraction of New Orleans residents are now 
able to pack up their belongings and evacuate the city in their 
own car or truck compared to 2005, there is less access to 
vehicles in New Orleans than in other gulf cities. Consequently, 
some New Orleans residents, especially children and the elderly 
in the African American community, remain dependent on public 
transportation and government evacuation plans if another strong 
hurricane were to hit the city.

The following table ranks U.S. cities by their hurricane 
frequency, or the expected number of years between hurricanes 
reaching the city. New Orleans is tied for twentieth on this 
list, with one hurricane expected to arrive every 2.27 years.

 U.S. Cities Ranked by Frequency of Hurricanes
Rank	City	State	County	Hurricane Freq.
1	Cape Hatteras	NC	Dare	1.36
2	Morehead City	NC	Carteret	1.54
3	Wilmington	NC	New Hanover	1.74
4	Boca Raton	FL	Palm Beach	1.93
5	Miami	FL	Miami-Dade	1.99
6	Hollywood	FL	Broward	2.01
6	Boynton Beach	FL	Palm Beach	2.01
6	Tarpon Springs	FL	Pinellas	2.01
6	Savannah	GA	Chatham	2.01
10	Palm Beach	FL	Palm Beach	2.04
10	Myrtle Beach	SC	Horry	2.04
12	Tampa	FL	Hillsborough	2.07
13	Lake Worth	FL	Palm Beach	2.13
13	Saint Augustine	FL	St. John’s	2.13
15	Deerfield Beach	FL	Broward	2.17
15	Jupiter	FL	Palm Beach	2.17
17	Sarasota	FL	Sarasota	2.20
18	Fort Lauderdale	FL	Broward	2.23
18	Beaufort	SC	Beaufort	2.23
20	New Orleans	LA	Orleans	2.27
20	Delray Beach	FL	Palm Beach	2.27
20	Homosassa	FL	Citrus	2.27

The cities ranked in the top twenty (including ties) for 
Hurricane frequency are located in fifteen counties including 
Orleans Parish where New Orleans is located. I used the 2013 
Public Use Microdata from the American Community Survey to 
calculate the fraction of county residents who live in 
households with no motor vehicles available. In addition, for 
New Orleans, I made the same calculation based on the 2005 
survey.

The following table shows that in 2005, 23.1 percent of New 
Orleans residents did not have access to a motor vehicle, but 
that fraction declined to 14.5 percent by 2013. Nonetheless, a 
higher fraction of New Orleans residents will rely on public 
transportation or a government evacuation plan, compared to 
other counties likely to face a major storm.

Access to Vehicles in Counties with Most Hurricanes
 County	State	 Residents with No Vehicle
Orleans 2005	LA	23.1%
Orleans 2013	LA	14.5%
Broward	FL	5.2%
Citrus	FL	2.8%
Hillsborough	FL	5.2%
Miami-Dade	FL	7.6%
Palm Beach	FL	5.4%
Pinellas	FL	5.6%
Sarasota	FL	4.0%
St. Johns	FL	3.6%
Chatham	GA	6.5%
Carteret	NC	4.2%
Dare	NC	6.3%
New Hanover	 NC	4.4%
Beaufort	 SC	2.1%
Horry	 SC	5.3%

I then compared the share of a county’s population with access 
to a motor vehicle separately for whites and African Americans. 
I also examined the situation for each county’s most vulnerable 
residents – those age 18 and younger or age 65 and older. 
Because some counties most likely to be struck by a hurricane 
are much less densely populated than New Orleans, I limited this 
comparison to the more populated counties.

The following table illustrates that African American residents 
are less likely to have access to a vehicle than white 
residents, regardless of county. In most counties the children 
and the elderly are also more likely to be dependent on public 
transportation.

Access to Vehicles by County, Race and Age
                                        % of Residents with No 
Vehicles Available
                                           African American      
    White Residents
County	State	Year	All Ages
Age<=18

or

Age>=65

All Ages
Age<=18

or

Age>=65

Orleans	LA	2005	28.5%	33.9%	11.8%	11.4%
Orleans	LA	2013	20.3%	21.1%	5.7%	3.8%
Broward	FL	2013	7.0%	8.8%	4.6%	5.8%
Hillsborough	FL	2013	10.1%	12.0%	3.9%	4.5%
Miami-Dade	FL	2013	15.0%	16.5%	 5.9%	8.0%
Palm Beach	FL	2013	8.2%	7.7%	4.6%	6.1%
Horry	SC	2011-13	15.1%	18.3%	2.6%	2.1%

The data reveal that in 2005 over one third of African American 
children and elderly residents of New Orleans did not have 
access to a motor vehicle and were likely dependent on public 
transportation or a government evacuation plan. By 2013 this 
fraction declined to 21.1% but access to vehicles among the 
African American community in New Orleans is lower than in 
Myrtle Beach, Miami, Tampa and other Gulf Coast communities.

All communities along the Gulf Coast, especially New Orleans, 
develop plans to insure public safety during a major storm. 
Because African American residents of these communities tend to 
have lower income and less financial wealth, they also tend to 
have less access to a vehicle.

While an improved levee system will avert another Katrina, New 
Orleans has the toughest challenge among Gulf Coast cities 
because more of its residents face obstacles to an evacuation 
when hurricane warnings are issued. There is a substantial 
“evacuation divide” in New Orleans. Only 3.8 percent of white 
children and elderly residents live in households without access 
to a vehicle, but over one in five African American children and 
residents age 65 and above can’t ride away from New Orleans in a 
car or truck when it is time to evacuate because there are no 
vehicles available to their household.

*This is a guest post by Stephen Bronars, Partner at Edgeworth 
Economics, Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago. 
His opinions are his own.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2015/08/30/ten-years-
after-katrina-african-americans-in-new-orleans-and-the-
evacuation-divide/
   
 

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Ten Years after Katrina: African Americans in New Orleans and the Evacuation Divide* aka Poisoning Houston Texas. "Lets Blame Bush Again" <blaming.bush@barackobama.com> - 2015-10-11 00:55 +0200

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