The New Orleans MSA was 1.3 Million residents.

[JanMichael]

From the 2003 American Community Survey site. Here.

1.3 Million Residents with a Poverty rate of 16%. That's about 208,000 people that probably didn't have the means to leave and if you accept that the Poverty rate is almost always under represented then tack on another 100-200k. And hey there are plenty of folks just hanging on that didn't have the money to go or a destination either.

I suppose I'm posting this because we're already getting people (Driving in with few possessions and little cash. I'm talking about those outside of the buses and planes, who knows how many that is) from NO here in North Carolina and the disaster is not really even over yet. By the time shit settles down a bit the country will likely be resettling hundreds of thousands of displaced citizens for a very long time. No homes, no jobs, no neighbors left, will lead to this migration.

I keep seeing posts that use the city proper numbers of around 500,000 and I wonder if people truly grasp the size of this catastrophe...

[phusion]

1. What about people

that did evacuate and have no family and have now been in hotel rooms for a week? What is that, $350 at least?

What will they do?

What a disaster...

[JanMichael]

3. They're a big part too.

I simply can't put all of the permutations of what this disaster will cause together.

It's so amazingly sad and big, big, monsterous...

[Inland]

2. They don't, because nobody has gotten to the small delta towns

The MSA includes a lot of scattered hamlets on the coast, where CNN isn't flying copters.

Expect large groups of dead found in places they sought shelter. churches, schools, like that.

[JanMichael]

4. I know and with the shock that people have now...

...they'd better prepare for more. Both in the size of the devastation and the post-disaster migrations.

[Old and In the Way]

5. It's truely amazing how well the evacuation went, considering the

limited advance notice. Nagin/Blanco don't get credit for the 90% that did make it out, but they will be smeared by the Bush administration to cover their failure to enact their response plan in a timely manner. Why did it take the feds a week to get 50,000 people out of NO after the disaster?