New Orleans Population Is Reduced Nearly 60%

The city’s population has dropped by nearly 60 percent since Hurricane Katrina, far more sharply than recent optimistic estimates had suggested, according to an authoritative post-storm survey released this week.

The population of New Orleans is now only 187,525, well under half the pre-storm population of 454,863, according to the survey, commissioned by several state agencies. The United States Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised those who carried out the door-to-door population count this summer.

“We actually knocked on doors and asked how many people lived there,” said Dr. Alden Henderson of the centers. About 490 households were surveyed, and researchers went to more than 1,100 dwellings, he said.

from the NY Times