Anyone who has been following the Katrina posts on FRee Republic has been aware of this "news" all along.
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Posted on 12/29/2005 2:56:01 PM PST by Mount Athos
Four months after Hurricane Katrina, analyses of data suggest that some widely reported assumptions about the storm's victims were incorrect.
For example, a comparison of locations where 874 bodies were recovered with U.S. Census tract data indicates that the victims weren't disproportionately poor. Another database, compiled by Knight Ridder of 486 Katrina victims from Orleans and St. Bernard parishes, suggests they also weren't disproportionately African-American.
Both sets of data are incomplete; Louisiana state officials have released no comprehensive list of the dead. Still, they provide the most comprehensive information available to date about who paid the ultimate price in the storm.
The one group that was disproportionately affected by the storm appears to have been older adults. People 60 and older account for only about 15 percent of the population in the New Orleans area, but the Knight Ridder database found that 74 percent of the dead were 60 or older. Nearly half were older than 75. Many of those were at nursing homes and hospitals, where nearly 20 percent of the victims were recovered.
Lack of transportation was assumed to be a key reason that many people stayed behind and died, but at many addresses where the dead were found, their cars remained in their driveways, flood-ruined symbols of fatal miscalculation.
The addresses where bodies were recovered were compiled by Louisiana state officials and released earlier this month. Knight Ridder charted the locations on a map of Orleans and St. Bernard parishes, then compared them with census data on income in those neighborhoods. The analysis excluded 216 bodies that were recovered from hospitals and nursing homes, as well as 63 recovered at collection points where people had dropped off bodies in the days after the storm; those victims probably came from locations other than the census tracts where they were found.
The comparison showed that 42 percent of the bodies found in Orleans and St. Bernard parishes were recovered in neighborhoods with poverty rates higher than 30 percent. That's only slightly higher than the 39 percent of residents who lived in such neighborhoods, according to the census data.
Similarly, 31 percent of the bodies turned up in areas with poverty rates below 15 percent, where 30 percent of the population lived.
The median household income in neighborhoods where Katrina victims were recovered was about $27,000 a year, just under the $29,000 median for the overall area.
One-fourth of Katrina deaths fell in census tracts with median incomes above $35,300. One-fourth of the area's pre-storm population lived in tracts with median incomes above $37,000.
About 67 percent of the mapped deaths fell in the central and western portion of New Orleans, an area thought to have flooded primarily because of the failure of man-made structures.
The separate Knight Ridder database of 486 Katrina victims was compiled from official information released by state and federal authorities and interviews with survivors of the dead. It cataloged deaths according to location, race, age, name and cause of death.
In that database, African-Americans outnumbered whites 51 percent to 44 percent. In the area overall, African-Americans outnumber whites 61 percent to 36 percent.
In Orleans Parish, 62 percent of known Katrina victims were African-American, compared with 66 percent for the total parish population. In St. Bernard Parish, 92 percent of the identified victims were white. Census figures show that 88 percent of parish residents identified themselves as white.
Among hurricane victims on the Knight Ridder list, men outnumbered women 51 percent to 49 percent, about the same as in the overall area before the storm.
George Bush hates old people.
So the common wisdom about Katrina is wrong? I'm shocked! I think Rove should be fired for his failure to properly execute his Anti-African American campaign.
Anyone who has been following the Katrina posts on FRee Republic has been aware of this "news" all along.
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Turns out it was really Dick Cheney with the weather machine.
All that whining and blaming Whitey and now the fact come out and you look like the idiots you are.
But .... it could have been true ... and that is all that matters. Don't let the truth and facts get in the way of what you want to believe.
Why the #@*% can't they at least release a list of the dead - not names, just particulars? Sheeesh! They must be doctoring it to fit their "agenda". The stupidity of it all makes me sick.
LOL!
Obviously the genocidal Bush/Cheney plot against black people failed miserably..... more evidence of WH incompetence, they couldn't even kill all the people they were trying so hard to kill..... /sarcasm
You mean... Kanye West and Chris Rock were wrong!?!? Unthinkable!
Totally. This showed up in the Houston Chronicle months ago.
----True, alot of us here knew it a long time ago. The race baiting bigots wouldn't know the truth if it came up and bit them on the a**.
I'm from New Orleans, and I still can't believe that there's a city named Punta Gorda.
Would those assumptions also be known as news reports?
Well after Charley came through there is not much of the old historic city left. We are getting our share of condos (low rise) and the demolition is about 60% done. Only a very few comercial buildings are going up. What was left standing has tripled in price. I say 5-10 years to get things close to back in order.
It will take generations to rebuild down there. Hopefully people will be smart and see what the Dutch did and not rely on levees. They just don't work.
I was reading a different thread on NOLA resturants and I do not want to start a fight but there are great resturants in lots of places.
There was this place in Islamorada called Ziggy's (official name the Conch). We loved the place. I never took it for granted that it would be there next time I went back. It made the place more special to savor every visit. Sure enough the owner died; his son took over; it was still great; then he got hit by a car chasing his mom's d+mn dog out on to US 1. The place is gone but not forgotten. Something to think about.
Those of us that live by the sea have to assume that sooner or later it will be gone. We made it through Charley (direct hit) with just major damage but rebuilding. Not sure about the next one. Buy insurance and savor the moments because it is not going to last.
We got some good short term help for food and water for the month or so it took to get power. but the only real resource for rebuilding stares at me in the mirror (with help from neighbors). That's it. No guv-ment. And that's fine.
Now that tickled my funny bone.
Many of us noted this fact while Katrina was going on and said a lot of NO residents were responsible for their own plight because they did not use their own perfectly functional cars to escape when they could. A number of enablers of disfunctionality and dependency criticized us for our alleged insensitivity to the "poor who did not have their own transportation." Now who's right???
I'm sure this information will be reported in the mainstream media soon. I trust they would like to dispel some of the lies they helped create. I have absolute faith in... oh man... I can't keep it up.. HAHAHAHAHA
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