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<H2>Hardest hit among the worst off </H2>
<H4 class=deck>Census data analysis quantifies economic, racial status of
victims</H4>
<P class=byline><SPAN class=name><A
href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news/bylines.asp?bylinename=Frank Bass">Frank
Bass</A></SPAN><BR>Associated Press<BR>September 5, 2005</P><!---------Code for Big Ads-------------------><!---------End Code for Big Ads------------------->
<P>People living in the path of Hurricane Katrina's worst devastation were twice
as likely as most Americans to be poor and without a car – factors that may help
explain why so many failed to evacuate as the storm approached.</P>
<P>An analysis of Census data shows that the residents in the three dozen
hardest-hit neighborhoods in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama also were
disproportionately minority and had incomes $10,000 below the national
average.</P>
<P>"Let them know we're not bums. We have houses. Our houses were destroyed. We
have jobs. It's not our fault that we didn't have cars to leave," Shatonia
Thomas, 27, said as she walked near New Orleans' convention center five days
after the storm, still trapped in the destruction with her children, ages 6 and
9.</P>
<P>
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<TD></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Money and transportation – two keys to surviving a
natural disaster – were inaccessible for many who got left behind in the Gulf
region's worst squalor.</P>
<P>"It's a different equation for poor people," said Dan Carter, a University of
South Carolina historian. "There's a certain ease of transportation and funds
the middle class in this country takes for granted."</P>
<P>The analysis showed:</P>
<P>• Median household income in the most devastated neighborhood was $32,000, or
$10,000 less than the national average.</P>
<P>• Two in 10 households in the disaster area had no car, compared with 1 in 10
in nationwide.</P>
<P>• Nearly 25 percent of those living in the hardest-hit areas were below the
poverty line, about double the national average. About 4.5 percent in the
disaster area received public assistance; nationwide, the number was about 3.5
percent.</P>
<P>•About 60 percent of the 700,000 people in the three dozen neighborhoods were
minority. Nationwide, about 1 in 3 Americans is a racial minority.</P>
<P>• One in 200 American households doesn't have adequate plumbing compared to
one in 100 households in the most affected areas. </P>
<P>• Nationwide, about 7 percent of households with children are headed by a
single mother. In the three dozen neighborhoods, 12 percent were single-mother
households.</P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>