Forgotten New Orleans
Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch has put together a document analyzing how much progress the city of New Orleans with the promised State and Federal help has made since Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. Known as The Mardi Gras Index and released yesterday, February 28th, it looks at over 235 indicators in 11 categories. The statistical outlook suggests that President Bush’s promise that the country “would do what it takes” to make New Orleans whole again has been forgotten a mere six months later and that very little progress has been made.
Here are just some of the statistics from the report:
Total number of people in Gulf Region acutely impacted by Hurricane Katrina: 700,000
Percent of those displaced by Katrina who were from New Orleans: 50
Percent of residents living in Katrina-damaged areas of New Orleans who were Black: 75
Percent who were poor: 29
Percent who were unemployed: 10
Percent who were renters: 53
Estimated loss of New Orleans’ black population if people are unable to return to flood-damaged neighborhoods: 80
Esitmated loss of New Orlean’ white population in such a case: 50
Percent of Ner Orleans streetcars lost in Katrina: 45
Percent of New Orleans buses lost: 53
Number of public transit riders per week in New Orleans pre-KatrinaL 124,000
Number of public transit riders per week in New Orleans of late January 2006: 11,709
Percent of the 470,000 Louisiana homes damaged by Katrina that were in New Orleans: 92
Number of the 434,216 homes in the seven-parish New Orleans Metropolitan Statistical Area rendered uninhabitable by the storm: 207,000
Esitmated residential replacement costs for Orleans Parish alone: $22 million
Estimated number of New Orleans residents evicted from their homes in November 2005 after Gov. Blanco’s two-month moratorium on legal proceedings ended: 10,000
Number of FEMA trailer homes requested by New Orleans residents: 21,000
Estimated number of those homes installed as of early February 2006: 3,000
Number of FEMA trailer homes sitting empty in Hope, Arkansas because the agency rules forbid their placement in flood plains: 11,000
Number of Louisiana’s 64 parishes that have granted FEMA unconditional permission to site trailers: 8
Percent of the approving parishes that lie in flood-prone areas: 100
Percent of New Orleans workforce displaced by Katrina: 50
Estimated number of jobs lost in New Orleans due to Katrina: 150,000
Number of New Orleans city employees laid off after Katrina: 3,000
Number of active unemployment claims in New Orleans at the end of January 2006: 13,046
Maximum amount of Louisian’s weekly unemployment payments: $258
Percent of New Orleans job market accounted for by small businesses (50 employees or less): 40
Percent of New Orleans small businesses destroyed by katrina: 60
Number of hospitals in Orleans Parish before 2005 hurricanes: 22
Number of hospitals open now: 7
Esitmated million cubic yards of debris created by the 2005 storms: 50
Millions of cubic yards that have been removed to date: 6
Out of 200 samples taken in Orleans Parish, percent that exceeded the Louisiana state cleanup level for pollution in residential neighborhoods: 37
Number of locations in residential neighborhoods of Mid-City, Gentilly, Lakeview, and New Orleans East where arsenic levels are more than 100 times higher than the EPA soil safety guideline: 7
Number of spills of oil, natural gas and other chemicals off the New Orleans coast: 423
Value of contracts federal agencies have awarded to private companies after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: $9.4 billion
Amount given out by FEMA alone in the month after Katrina hit: $1.5 billion
Percent of those that had little or no competition: 80
Number of Orleans Parish prisoners who have not seen an attorney, some since before Katrina hit: 4,500
Number of Wrongful imprisonment petitions filed by one legal team on behalf of thousands of New Orleans prisoners, many of whom have been held for over 6 months without seeing a lawyer or, in some cases without ever having charges filed against them: 2,100
Number of prisoners who have been released as a result of those petitions: 1,000
Number of New Orleans public defenders before Katrina: 42
Number as of February 2006: 6
Hat tip to Pam.
tags: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans
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