First-of-its-kind data shows where displaced New Orleanians landed after Katrina

Data: Analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by Elizabeth Fussell of Brown University, performed at a Federal Statistical Research Data Center under FSRDC Project Number 2556 (CBDRB-FY25-0395); Chart: Kavya Beheraj/AxiosWhen thousands of New Orleans homes flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the city lost more than half its population overnight.Why it matters: They went somewhere, and we're finally getting a clearer idea of where they landed.Flashback: Under the city's first mandatory evacuation, New Orleanians began leaving before the storm made landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, fleeing to cities like Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Houston, Atlanta and thousands of places in between and beyond.When the levees broke, flooding about 80% of the city, it meant thousands more needed to be removed from a suddenly uninhabitable New Orleans.The storm was also responsible for the deaths of nearly 1,400 people, according to the National Hurricane Center, with most "presumably" in Louisiana. They would never get the chance to go home.The sodden shell of a city left behind needed to be rebuilt before it could be functional, but it needed to be functional to be rebuilt.New Orleans' population was cleaved in two.By the numbers: The top experts for New Orleans demographic data point to the 2000 census as the best source for pre-Katrina figures, which pegs the population at 484,674 people in April 2000.New Orleans counted an estimated 230,172 residents in April 2006, the Data Center says, a loss of more than 250,000 people. The population was estimated to have risen to 362,701 by 2024, despite recent struggles the city and state have faced in keeping and attracting population.Yes, but: Ever since the storm, many researchers and journalists have tried to get at exactly where these displaced New Orleanians ended up.Tracking that, however, has been exceptionally hard to do. People — and the decisions they make — are complicated, and population data tells us trends but doesn't follow individuals.In the end, government officials have granted only one researcher access to that kind of specificity within the data.That person is Elizabeth Fussell, who was an assistant professor at Tulane University from 2001 to 2007."The challenge is to have longitudinal data on individuals that would show you, 'this person was living in New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina, and here's where they lived the next year, the next year, the next year, up until the present," Fussell tells Axios New Orleans. "I have taken up that challenge."Fussell's research found that 33% of people who had been living in New Orleans when Katrina hit had not returned to the metro area by 2006.Of those people who hadn't returned, 21.7% were in Baton Rouge, 14.6% were in Atlanta, 11.7% were in Houston and 5.8% were in Dallas-Fort Worth.From there, the population spread out across the U.S.By 2019, her research shows, 30.9% of Katrina-affected New Orleanians were still living elsewhere, though by then, Texas cities had proven stronger at keeping and even attracting more of them."People found more reasons to stay in Texas than they did in Baton Rouge or Atlanta," Fussell says."That's what's interesting: What made the places stickier for some people and less sticky for others? … You need more than friends and family; you need jobs and housing."Atlanta's 14.6% share of displaced New Orleanians in 2006, for example, dropped to 7.7% by 2019. On the other hand, during that same timeframe, Houston's share grew from 21% to 38%. Friction point: Hurricane Katrina and its recovery also showed, in stark relief, just how a disaster can lay bear and exacerbate existing inequities."Everybody was displaced from New Orleans," Fussell says, but her earlier research shows "that non-Black residents … came back earlier to New Orleans than Black residents.""Neighborhoods that had larger percentages of Black residents were more likely to have suffered greater damage and have higher flood deaths, but [it's also because of] access to rebuilding resources."How it worked: Fussell examined New Orleans' population in the 2000 census, removing people who had died or were found living outside Orleans Parish until Hurricane Katrina.Fussell called those people the Katrina-affected population, and she followed their whereabouts for each year from 2006 to 2019, again adjusting for deaths.Between the lines: In the immediate aftermath, many displaced New Orleanians were referred to as "refugees," a loaded term that emphasized otherness despite a core truth: They were Americans.And it was primarily elsewhere in the United States — every single state, in fact, according to Fussell — that they settled.That is a keenly felt loss for New Orleans, where the fabric of its neighborhoods changed forever.But these New Orleanians enriched the places they ended up, too.These are some of their stories:CharlotteLonnie Davis established the JazzArts organization, creating a jazz scene in a Southern city that lacked one and educating more than 50,000 students."They're my inspiration," she says. "The only reason that this organization exists is because I was one of those students, and the music changed my life."Read her story from Axios' Alexandria Sands.ChicagoDiane Chaine moved to New Orleans in 1998, temporarily ended up back home in her native Chicago before returning to New Orleans in 2006. "Despite people questioning whether New Orleans mattered enough to be rebuilt, it was the resiliency of the people and a ton of hard work to get this city back up and running," she says.Read her story from Axios' Justin Kaufmann.ColumbusDavid Brown left the French Quarter to create a community choir in Columbus, where participants bring arts into area schools and prisons. Most have no professional musical training.Read his story from Axios' Alissa Widman Neese.Northwest ArkansasDavid Faulk lost his home in St. Bernard Parish but found one in Prairie Grove, Arkansas, where he's served as mayor since 2023."Katrina was just a detail that set me in a direction," Faulk says.Read his story from Axios' Worth Sparkman.Editor's note: As the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina nears, Axios will share more stories from around the country. Check back for updates.

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