This is rather interesting...
(the bold parts are MY editorializing of the story... as are the comments after the link to "full story")
Early data challenge assumptions about Katrina victims
By John Simerman, Dwight Ott, Ted Mellnik
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
Friday, December 30, 2005
NEW ORLEANS - 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 census tract data indicate 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 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 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.
Full Article
This is very interesting to me... Considering all the noise about how Bush hated black people because he "let them die" and all that nonsense, i'm not surprised that this news isn't all that widespread. After all it makes the situation in Louisiana look so much less dire since it WASN'T a major disproportionate of poor & black people dying in Katrina. It's not a big deal when the middle class and rich people die, right? *ok, sarcasm done...*
-eb
Early data challenge assumptions about Katrina victims
By John Simerman, Dwight Ott, Ted Mellnik
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
Friday, December 30, 2005
NEW ORLEANS - 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 census tract data indicate 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 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 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.
Full Article
This is very interesting to me... Considering all the noise about how Bush hated black people because he "let them die" and all that nonsense, i'm not surprised that this news isn't all that widespread. After all it makes the situation in Louisiana look so much less dire since it WASN'T a major disproportionate of poor & black people dying in Katrina. It's not a big deal when the middle class and rich people die, right? *ok, sarcasm done...*
-eb