New Orleans Facts

    As of January 2007  New Orleans Online

Population. .

 

Parishes          Pre-Katrina                  1-Jul-06                    1-Jan-07
Orleans             484,674                        235,000                    255,000
Jefferson         455,466                        450,000                    500,000
Plaquemines      26,757                          22,000                     25,000
St. Bernard        67,229                          19,000                     20,000
St. Charles         48,072                          55,000                     60,000
St. John the
Baptist              43,044                           49,000                     55,000
St.
Tammany         191,268                         235,000                   240,000
Tangipahoa     100,588                         112,000                   115,000
Metro Area  1,417,098                      1,177,000                 1,270,000

Hospitals. Pre-Katrina there were 17 general acute care hospitals in operation in the metro area. Currently there are 11.   

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  Wikipedia

 There were 22 homicides in July 2006, the same as the monthly average for the city from 2002 until Hurricane Katrina, when the population was much higher.^[30] There were 161 homicides in 2006.

As of February 12, there were at least 21 homicides in 2007. [7] On Thursday, January 11, 2007, several thousand New Orleans residents marched through city streets and gathered at City Hall for a rally demanding police and city leaders tackle the crime problem. Mayor Ray Nagin said he was "totally and solely focused" on attacking the problem. The city of New Orleans implemented checkpoints starting in early January 2007 from the hours of 2 a.m and 6 a.m. in high crime areas and to date, January 20, 2007, they have netted over 60 arrest and issued more than 100 citations

New Orleans Public Schools, the city's school district, was one of the area's largest school districts before Hurricane Katrina. It was widely recognized as the lowest performing school district in Louisiana. According to researchers Carl L. Bankston and Stephen J. Caldas, only 12 of the 103 school districts in New Orleans showed reasonably good performance at the beginning of the twenty-first century.^[32] Following Hurricane Katrina, the state of Louisiana took over most of the schools within the system (all schools that fell into a nominal "worst-performing" metric); about 20 new charter schools have also been started since the storm, educating about 15,000 students. The total number of student enrollment in New Orleans is estimated to be between 28,000 to 30,000. The Recovery School District has come under fire recently for not having enough schools ready for returning students as 300 students had to be put on waiting list because they couldn't keep up with the high demand. Most Recovery District officials claim that the rate of evacuees returning are much higher than orginally thought so the supply couldn't keep up with the demand. Recovery District officials announced that by the fall semester of 2007 and the spring semester of 2008 enough schools should be open to handle 48,000 students, a gradual increase of the returning displaced population.

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Think Progress   as of August 28, 2006

– Sixty-six percent of public schools have reopened.

– A 40 percent hike in rental rates, disproportionately affecting black and low-income families.

– A 300 percent increase in the suicide rate.

Eighty-four percent of New Orleans residents rate the government’s recovery efforts negatively, while 66 percent believe the recovery money has been “mostly wasted.”

 

Technorati tags: New Orleans, Katrina, Federal Government

New Orleans Since Katrina

    As you all well know, our esteemed Idiot in Chief made a trip (14th) down to New Orleans to assure the residents and himself that he is committed to the restoration of the area.

   There was the usual press briefing aboard Air Force One on the way to the area with Don Powell ( President's Federal Gulf Coast Coordinator ) doing  most of the Q&A session.

The White House      March 1, 2007

MR. POWELL: Good morning. As Dana indicated, this is the President's 14th trip, and I think, again, as evidence of his long-term commitment to rebuild the Gulf Coast area. In that regard, I think there's been lots of progress since the last -- over the last 18 months. Children are in school; "help wanted" signs are up; the port is 100 percent back; restaurants are open; hotels are open; building permits have increased; self -- (inaudible) -- revenue is, in some cases, at record highs. So there's been lots of progress.

Q  I read an editorial in the paper today, read an editorial in the Post today that said the recovery has been painfully slow and that more than half of the schools remain closed. Another report said tens of thousands of people remain displaced. Is that true, and does that worry you?

MR. POWELL: Well, we all have a sense of urgency about the recovery; we want it to be -- but I think it's important to look and put it in perspective about the size of the storm and how overwhelming this storm was. So I think there's been some good progress. As I mentioned, 53 schools are open. There's 28,000 kids in school. They're there. By some of their own testimony, the schools are better than they were before Katrina. I've heard that from teachers, from administrators.

Q  Is the federal end of this -- are you guys doing all you can do? Is that your feeling? Is there anything you can do to get money into the hands of the people who are frustrated that their house is still in shambles, or whatever, more quickly?

MR. POWELL: I ask that question myself all the time. That's a constant question that I'm always asking. At the same time, are we being responsible to the taxpayers? Are we doing everything we can to make sure that we're giving the resources

-- the necessary resources to rebuild the Gulf Coast? And with the leadership of this President, and obviously, Congress, the American taxpayers have poured a lot of money into that area. It's important that the locals -- that the local people began to push and process that money and clothes and put it in the appropriate hands of people.

 

Technorati tags: New Orleans, Katrina, Bush