Katrina, Rita victims settle in elsewhere

Almost 300,000 households displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita — the size of a large city — have resettled at least permanently enough to change their address for mail delivery. They represent about one in 5 ve of the 1.6 million households that could not get mail for a time in areas affected by Katrina and Rita. Data from the U.S. Postal Service give the 5 rst substantial look at where evacuees are settling. A USA TODAY analysis of change-of- address data 5 led through Oct. 13 shows: uMany are staying close to home. More than 38,000 people changed their address to Baton Rouge, about 29,000 to Houston. An additional 40,000 moved to communities just outside metropolitan New Orleans. “ These are the most reluctant migrants we’ve had in our history,” says William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution think tank. About 80% of Louisiana’s residents in 2000 were natives of the state. uMany who moved out of state went to Southern cities such as Dallas, Atlanta, San Antonio, Little Rock, Memphis and Nashville. “ There’s two kinds of places people are going to,” Frey says. “ One are the makeshift areas, hotels. Then there are the places where people have friends and families who are going to put them up.” Shavonne Woods, 22, whose lakefront New Orleans home was “ messed up” by Katrina, moved to Grand Prairie, Texas, to stay with an aunt and uncle before the hurricane hit. She has been there since but didn’t change her address until two weeks ago. She plans to return to New Orleans, where she worked as a cashier at a parking garage, but she doesn’t knowwhen. “ These people are in a holding pattern both physically and psychologically,” Frey says. “ They’re not yet in a position to even come to grips with where their long- term residences are going to be.” uFewer moved farther away. Cities with more than 400 households of evacuees include Las Vegas, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Washington and West Palm Beach, Fla. “ The Gulf Coast absorbed most of the change” from the hurricane evacuees, says Robert Lang, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech. “ The bookend big cities of Dallas and Atlanta took the next tier.”