Postal Service Tracks Evacuees’ Ebb and Flow

Thousands of families displaced by Hurricane Katrina have left their temporary housing around the country and returned to the New Orleans area, new U.S. Postal Service records show. At the same time, other displaced households left the disaster area, as the post-Katrina migration developed a crisscrossing pattern.

That picture emerged from about 483,000 changes of address filed with the U.S. Postal Service as a result of the August 2005 disaster that destroyed much of the housing in New Orleans and its suburbs.

Postal Service records showed that the number of relocated households increased slightly in all major regions of the country, but within each region, there were areas where the number of relocated households declined.

Tens of thousands of households reported moves to the gulf region.

About 15,000 households relocated into New Orleans, and about 22,000 moved into the suburban counties south and west of the city, the records show. Those include residents moving from one part of the region to another and residents returning from elsewhere in the country.

Those returning to the city were outnumbered by those leaving, but in the suburbs and the remainder of the disaster area, households moving in exceeded those leaving.

These numbers support anecdotal evidence that evacuees are beginning to trickle back home, or at least reestablish their ties to New Orleans, even before a massive rebuilding effort has begun.

Karl Washington, an events producer, now considers himself a dual resident of California and New Orleans.

He came to Los Angeles early in October but couldn’t find work. Then in November, he got an offer from a New Orleans cultural center to produce a festival last month. Now he has a new job, organizing a job fair for the city.

“I am needed here” in New Orleans, he said. “It’s not just a choice; it’s a responsibility.”

But Washington still hopes to become a Hollywood producer and is on a waiting list for subsidized housing in North Hollywood.

With New Orleans still in turmoil, the move home can be traumatic, as Glenda and Leo Huff learned when they reluctantly abandoned their new lives in Southern California after six weeks.

The Huffs, along with their 14-year-old son, moved to the Los Angeles area in October with the help of a faith-based organization called Operation Homecoming USA.

“I loved it,” Glenda said. “The people were so friendly.”

But Leo, a 40-year-old welder, couldn’t find a job paying more than $9 an hour, half of what he earned in his former job with Bollinger Shipyards of New Orleans, one of the nation’s largest shipbuilders. And Bollinger wanted him back.

Glenda, 39, a cashier for Walgreens, could get only one day of work at the Walgreens in Fontana, but her old store in Metairie, La., wanted her back.

“We just rushed to get back to work to make our money,” she said. “Now everything is falling apart.”

Glenda and her son are living with her mother in Baton Rouge, La. Her other three children also live there, along with her sister and her nephew. Leo, who joined them there briefly, just moved into a FEMA trailer.

Now the Huffs hardly see each other, instead talking on the phone every day. Glenda works from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.; Leo works from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m.

She said New Orleans was a ghost town and that Baton Rouge was crowded with evacuees. The cost of living has also risen in Baton Rouge, she said.

But the pay keeps her there. She makes $10 an hour now, up from the $7 an hour she made before the storm. She noted that McDonald’s is paying $12 an hour.

To allow long-term tracking of Katrina evacuees such as the Huffs, the Postal Service is periodically releasing summaries of address changes.

The initial report covered the first six weeks after Katrina. At that point, about 327,000 households recorded moves, about 80% of them within a day’s drive of New Orleans, but some reaching every state in the union.

The latest report covered Oct. 13 through Jan. 9. It added 155,000 address changes.

In contrast to the first wave of relocations, which were mostly radiating outward from New Orleans, about half of the new address changes probably represented second moves by households that had earlier left the area.

Because of the way the Postal Service recorded the moves, it was not possible to determine exactly how many households arrived or left a particular area, but only to calculate the net change.

Of the roughly 37,000 households notifying the Postal Service of moves into New Orleans and its suburbs, some could have been moving from one part of the area to another and others could have been moving back.

But the population of the suburban counties was clearly rebounding. Not quite 9,000 households left, and about 22,000 moved in.

Around the country, about 70 ZIP Code areas experienced net declines in evacuee populations. Most of those were away from major cities.

Major urban areas, particularly Atlanta, continued to attract evacuees.

In Southern California, Postal Service records show that the evacuee population increased moderately over the three-month period.

Operation Homecoming has brought about 200 people from the ravaged Gulf Coast to Southern California. Although some, like the Huffs, have returned to Louisiana, most have stayed, said Pastor Camelia Joseph-Lloyd, chief operations officer.

They don’t want to go back to the devastated areas, she said. “There’s no place for them to go.”

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Going home

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The migration caused by Hurricane Katrina continued to every region of the country in 2006, but some evacuees have returned to New Orleans and its suburban counties. The map shows the increase or decrease of relocated households in ZIP code clusters.

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Moving back

In 2006, more households have moved back to hurricane-damaged areas than any other part of the United States.

Hurricane damage area---323,775

Greater gulf---103,418

Southeast---14,983

Northeast---10,169

Midwest---14,379

Plains states---746

Southwest---13,804

Northwest---1,883

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Note: Hawaii is included in Southwest.

Alaska is included in Northwest.

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Sources: U.S. Postal Service and U.S. Census Bureau.

Data analysis by Sandra Poindexter