ABSTRACT

In August 2005 Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Because of Katrina, 1 million people evacuated from the Gulf Coast, half of them being from New Orleans, and 1.36 million people filed for federal assistance. Compared to other natural disasters that have hit the United States, Katrina brought a new degree of devastation and out-migration, resulting in 707 temporary shelters in 24 states across the country. In this article Elliott and Pais look at how race and class affected people during and after the storm, and how the human response was affected by these variables.