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Evaluating Racial Disparities in Hurricane Katrina Relief Using Direct Trailer Counts in New Orleans and FEMA Records
Author(s) -
Craemer Thomas
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
public administration review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.721
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1540-6210
pISSN - 0033-3352
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02151.x
Subject(s) - hurricane katrina , trailer , emergency management , socioeconomic status , geography , african american , white (mutation) , demography , history , political science , natural disaster , sociology , meteorology , engineering , ethnology , population , law , gene , biochemistry , chemistry , structural engineering
Are charges of racial disparities in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s relief efforts in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina accurate? Limited publicly available data on trailer distribution in New Orleans are compared to an on‐site trailer count and to a complete trailer count from aerial photographs of New Orleans. The Lower Ninth Ward in Orleans Parish (98 percent Black prior to Hurricane Katrina) had significantly fewer trailers than neighboring Arabi in St. Bernard Parish (95 percent White prior to Hurricane Katrina). To control for administrative differences between parishes and socioeconomic factors, two affluent neighborhoods within Orleans Parish, Pontchartrain Park (97 percent Black prior to Hurricane Katrina) and Lakeview (94 percent White prior to Hurricane Katrina), are compared. The conclusion: racial discrepancies remain large and substantial. A number of hypotheses are developed and the implications discussed.