Hurricane Katrina: Who Was Hit? Who Will Return?

Research conducted by John Logan supports the impression that the Gulf Coast's African Americans and poor residents were disproportionately affected by the deadly storm.

by Deborah Goldstein

They are images we won't soon forget - the fear and suffering on the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina. Helpless survivors stranded on rooftops. Thousands living inhumanely at the Superdome. Neighborhoods reduced to rubble.

For the most part, the pictures depicted Katrina's victims as black and poverty-stricken. And now, Brown sociologist John Logan has the first research supporting that impression.

Professor Logan, director of Brown's research initiative in Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences (S4), just released a report showing the Gulf Coast's African Americans and poor residents were, in fact, disproportionately affected by the deadly storm. His findings also raise serious questions about the future of New Orleans.

Combining the most recent U.S. Census data with FEMA disaster classifications, Logan found that more than 650,000 people lived in areas the government considered moderately to catastrophically damaged. Overall, there were major social disparities between that population and those who lived in undamaged zones. Those disparities grow even larger when analyzing exclusively the city of New Orleans.

"The suffering from the storm certainly cut across racial and class lines," Logan explained. "But the odds of living in a damaged area were clearly much greater for blacks, residents who rented their homes, and people living below the poverty line. In these respects, the most socially vulnerable residents also turned out to be at the greatest physical risk."

If there is a surprise in this finding, it is that the opposite is true in New Orleans' suburbs and along the Mississippi shore. But for Logan the more intriguing question is: Now that we know who was hit, what does that tell us about who will return? The possibility is stunning.

"The overall pattern indicates that post-Katrina New Orleans is at risk of losing as much as 80 percent of its black population," Logan said. "People displaced by the storm will take a long time to resettle, and there's a possibility many won't be allowed back into their neighborhoods. New Orleans probably won't be the same city it once was."

He called the magnitude of displacement a "once-in-a-century event" in the United States, comparing it to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Katrina not only presents a research opportunity, but also a "moral and social obligation" to study its impact.

Logan's report was the first research to be released from a team of S4 scholars who are collaborating to study Hurricane Katrina's social and environmental impacts with a grant from the National Science Foundation. The team includes Phil Brown, professor of sociology; Steve Hamburg, associate professor of environmental studies; Rachel Morello-Frosch, assistant professor of environmental studies; and Jack Mustard, associate professor of geological sciences.

The group's interdisciplinary approach "is an example of natural and social scientists having conversations to understand the implications of a natural and social disaster," said Hamburg. "It certainly leads to new and interesting insights."

In December, most of the group traveled to the area hardest hit by Katrina to tour and talk with displaced people and community leaders. Logan remembered being struck by the emptiness and darkness while driving through once-thriving neighborhoods. The trip greatly personalized their research.

"No news article or television report can capture what we saw," Morello-Frosch recalled. "You feel the devastation with every sense - the smells, the sights. It put feelings and faces on the storm statistics."

The S4 team will draw upon Logan's findings as the scholars pursue research in their respective fields. Morello-Forsch is analyzing post-Katrina public health and environmental hazards. Hamburg and Mustard are using remote sensing data to determine whether natural vegetation and forests helped protect certain populations. Brown is especially interested in how environmental and other groups participate in the politics of rebuilding.

Logan plans to continue tracking where displaced people resettle and rebuild their lives.

"Policy choices affecting who can return, to which neighborhoods, and with what forms of public and private assistance will greatly affect the future character of New Orleans," Logan said. "And I'm hooked. I'll go back. It's personal now, and it's good to be able to work on something that's so important to me."