Katrina: The Facts

On the weekend after Thanksgiving, Karol, Thomas, and I — along with my parents — drove for the first time through the Katrina-ravaged neighborhoods of New Orleans. We were stunned by the devastation. Some of my recollections are here.

One surprise was seeing the destruction of the New Orleans’ neighborhood known as Lakeview. This neighborhood is solidly middle-class and upper-middle-class. And yet to our eyes the destruction in Lakeview is at least as bad — and probably worse — than the destruction in the Ninth Ward.

And yet I don’t recall hearing or reading any of the national news media report on Lakeview. Almost all of the reports focused on the much poorer Ninth Ward. This focus helped to create and perpetuate the now-widely held belief that Katrina’s devastation was visited disproportionately on poor people. After seeing Lakeview, I began to question that belief. Now, after reading this column in yesterday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, I not only question, but reject, that belief.

The column — by A. Barton Hinkle — reports findings of a recent study by the Knight-Ridder news agency. Here’s the meat of Hinkle’s column:

Among other things, Knight-Ridder found:

THE MEDIAN income for the New Orleans area was $29,000. The
median income in neighborhoods where bodies of Katrina victims were
found was $27,000.

One-fourth of the area’s residents lived in Census
tracts where the median income was $37,000 or higher. One-fourth of
deaths attributed to Katrina occurred in Census tracts where the median
income was above $35,300.

Thirty-nine percent of New Orleans residents lived in
neighborhoods where the poverty rate was higher than 30 percent.
Forty-two percent of the bodies were recovered in those neighborhoods.

Thirty percent of residents lived in neighborhoods
where the poverty rate stood below 15 percent. Thirty-one percent of
the bodies turned up there.

In Orleans Parish, blacks made up 66 percent of the total population, and 62 percent of the victims of Katrina.

In St. Bernard Parish, whites made up 88 percent of the residents, and 92 percent of the victims of Katrina.

Men made up about 51 percent of the pre-Katrina population of New Orleans, and about 51 percent of the victims of the storm.

These figures belie the assumption that Katrina was not only devastating, but selectively so.

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Steven M. Warshawsky

Excellent post (as always). Of course, the people you are really addressing -- the conspiracy theorists and race mongers -- are immune to such logic and evidence. They prefer, for oddly masochistic but nevertheless empowering reasons, to stick to their "white devil" interpretation of Katrina (and just about every other negative event). What progress our society would make if we all could agree to rely on facts -- whether good, bad, or neutral -- instead of paranoia and fantasy.

Gil Guillory

There's one group left out. Didn't some claim that Katrina was the wrath of God? We need a statistic on Christians (broken down by sect) vs. non-Christians. ;)

Tom

Well there's some fallacious logic right there.

The figures you've cited neither prove nor disprove that the devastation was visited disproportionately on poor people.

Here are a few reasons why:

(1) Median incomes prove nothing. The dead people you've cited may have incomes above or below those levels, and by some margin of difference. You need much more precise figures than medians - including standard deviations - before you can draw any sensible conclusions.

(2) It could be, for example, that the bodies recovered in areas where poverty was below 15% could ALL have been people who lived in poverty, or all could have been people who DIDN'T live in poverty. There is no reason to conclude there was an even spread.

(3) The statistics only focus on the dead. Katrina was devastating to the living too. It might well be - as unlikely as it may seem - that fewer poor than rich people had home insurance. It might well be - as unlikely as it may seem - that fewer poor than rich people had savings to dip into while out of work. What a novel idea.

Before leaping to conclusions, I would wait to hear reportage of the income brackets of the ACTUAL PEOPLE reported dead and missing; and statistics on the income brackets of those who are now bankrupt or dispossessed.

I'm not saying that Katrina's devastation WAS visited disproprtionally on poor people. But you certainly can't say it WASN'T on the basis of these statistics.

Don Boudreaux

Tom -- Oh come on. Of course we can nit-pick data and interpretations of data for days and weeks on end. But the figures that the Knight-Ridder study reveal surely are sufficient to cast doubt on the prevailing assumption that Katrina's awful impact was visited far more viciously and heavily upon poor people than upon not-poor people.

However weak my and Barton Hinkle's interpretation of the data might be, the now-standard story that Katrina hit poor minorities much worse than other groups has even less empirical grounding.

Tom

Perhaps it's just the news sources that I read, but I had never heard the argument put forth that Katrina hit the poor worse than other groups - I assumed I had misunderstood you when you did so. I agree: I don't see how anybody in their right mind could suggest that Katrina somehow only swept through poor black neighborhoods. I HAVE heard the argument that the IMPACT on the poorest people was worse than that of the rich: psychologically for those who were stranded without food and clean water as they could not afford transportation to escape, and economically for those without insurance and savings. I think this is irrefutable. If anybody is suggesting that OF THOSE WHO REMAINED in New Orleans the poor died disproportionately, then that would indeed be bizarre: but I clearly have better taste in news sources.

True_Liberal

Although I regret not having book and verse at my fingertips, I have also heard that of these categories:

1) Able to evacuate, and did;

2) Albe to evacuate, and elected to stay;

3) Unable to evacuate;

...that each category was in approximately the same ratio black-to-white as the overall N.O. population.

save_the_rustbelt

I think I saw much of this information reported weeks ago, conservatives just can't stand that thought that race may have been a real issue (but not necessarily the most important issue, to be sure).

The real issue is gross government incompetence, particularly by the Bush administration, to which we have entrusted massive resources with the understanding that sometimes local government cannot handle certain problems.

Another issue is that some conversative commentators seemed to come very close to a "shiftless N******s argument, to explain why elderly black women with diabetes should not use the Horatio Alger route to success and safety. George Will comes to mind.

JohnDewey

Tom: "I don't see how anybody in their right mind could suggest that Katrina somehow only swept through poor black neighborhoods."

The argument was that the poor African-Americans were concentrated in the lowest sections of New Orleans - that only the middle class and wealthy could afford homes in the sections above or almost at sea level. I disagree with this argument, but I can see how someone in their right mind could believe it.

Tom: "I HAVE heard the argument that the IMPACT on the poorest people was worse than that of the rich: psychologically for those who were stranded without food and clean water as they could not afford transportation to escape"

Had we not subsidized transit for the past 50 years, many more of the poor would have owned their own cars. Had we not subsidized their housing and food expenses as well, the New Orleans poor would have been much more self-reliant.

The New Orleans area was home to the one of the largest concentrations of Vietnamese immigrants. Most of these refugees were just as poor as the New Orleans African-American poor when they arrived thirty years ago. But the news cameras didn't pick up any Vietnamese at the Superdome or at the New Orleans Convention Center.

My Vietnamese friends tell me that every Asian immigrant in the U.S. who wants to work does work and does support himself. This includes those who arrive here with little education, with few possessions, and with no English language skills. What makes them different is what they didn't bring to this country: the culture of entitlement that has held back the African-American poor for so long.

cb

rustbelt, it is such hyperbole that caused me to abandon the party of my upbringing (along w/ the hypocrisy of the media and universities). such attitudes contribute, imho, to the divisiveness of today's politics.

Tom

John,

I find your post a little odd. You don't seem to be disagreeing with me as such, but rather accepting that the poorest blacks MAY have felt more impact, but if so it was their fault. I'm tempted to say "imported slaves brought a culture of entitlement to this country?", but really whether your post is racist or not belongs in a whole other thread.

JohnDewey

Tom,

I'm not surprised you might consider my post to be racist.

I can see how the poor of New Orleans might feel the Katrina impact LONGER than other economic/ethnic groups. That's because many have come to expect government to take care of their problems. That's a generalization, of course. Some poor are self-reliant and will recover very well on their own.

I disagree with the idea that the African-American poor - or the poor of any ethnic group - suffered more damages or loss of livelihood. In fact, the self-reliant, middle-class Asians who owned their own homes and businesses lost much more than anyone who lived in public housing and collected disability checks.

The culture of entitlement I referred to did not start 200 years ago or even 150 years ago. As Thomas Sowell has pointed out, it's only about three generations old. It's not a product of the slavery era as much as it is a product of the irrational guilt about the slavery era.

Tom

Very briefly - yes, I think generalizations are a problem; Katrina's impact on individuals depends on a whole host of different factors. That's why I don't like vague statistics or sweeping statements of any sort based on wealth, sex, race, or whatever: they over-generalize and obscure.

I'm not even going to enter into whether a culture of entitlement exists or not - in mentioning slavery I was just criticizing some sloppy wording.

Ken

"Another issue is that some conversative commentators seemed to come very close to a "shiftless N******s argument, to explain why elderly black women with diabetes should not use the Horatio Alger route to success and safety. George Will comes to mind."

How close is "close"? Does any disparagement of a person's behavior and response to problems and threats cross the line when that person isn't white?

While we're at it, is it "close" to a "shiftless N******" argument to note that people younger and healthier than the (57 year old) guy mentioned at (http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti... not have been as helpless and unable to escape as some would have us believe. Not to mention the numerous bodies found in homes with cars in the driveway(http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/13531474.htm)

thingsbetterwithkoch

So is this taking Darwin economics back to Darwin evolution with the fittest - that is those who are more fit to earn more money, get the higher ground and survive and those less fit get the lower ground and get washed away?

-Chuck

True_Liberal

It's Darwinian all right - survival of those with the best survival sense (i.e. don't try to remain in a sub-sea-level neighborhood) in a time of high flood risk.

What else can conclude when the victims were undiscrimated as to race/mobility/wealth?

NinjaPlease

Rustbelt, where else does the "let them eat cake" and "market forces cures all" attitudes work?

I'm curious where G.O.P party line is on that.