In New Orleans the 5.8 million people existing in the areas hit hardest by Katrina, some several 1.3 million lived in the New Orleans metropolitan region, with close to one-half the million people living in the city of New Orleans itself. The scarcity rate in the city is outstandingly high. The survey data point out that more than one in four — 28 percent — of the city’s inhabitants were living in paucity earlier than the hurricane descended upon the city. Of the 245 big cities in the nation (those with populations of 100,000 or more), New Orleans attached for the sixth poorest in the 2000 census.

Those who were poor in New Orleans usually lacked their own means of transportation. Our calculations, based on the survey data, illustrate that more half of the broke households in New Orleans — 54 percent — did not have a car, truck, or van in 2000. with the elderly, the ratio was higher. Sixty-five percent of poor elderly households in New Orleans did not have a vehicle, make it more hard for them to getaway the hurricane and its effects.