For evacuees, distance may be key

Among the scattered New Orleanians who long for home, Kathleen Lambert-Scott and Theresa Hughes represent two divergent groups whose lives in the past year may forecast the city's future population.

Each woman sorely misses her old life in Gentilly and has vowed to rebuild it eventually. But Lambert-Scott staked her family's temporary home 50 miles away in her rural hometown of Sorrento, while Hughes rented an apartment 400 miles away in Memphis.

Lambert-Scott, 42, kept her partnership in a downtown New Orleans law firm by committing to a grueling three-hour round-trip commute as she and her husband pursue plans to build a new home on their old lot. Hughes, 53, had a job offer in New Orleans from the U.S. Postal Service, but she turned it down because she felt she could not afford the area's high rents.

The year's frustrations have worn on both women, but there's a difference. Living within an hour's drive of home, Lambert-Scott speaks with optimism about her block on Pratt Drive coming back to life. Hughes describes her life as "waiting it out" from afar.

Though scores of factors will keep the future face of the city uncertain for years, demographers say the people most likely to become New Orleans residents again are already staging their return from the city's suburbs and a corridor extending to Baton Rouge.

from the Times Picayune