This research will examine the economic impact of Hurricane Katrina upon both the metropolitan regions that were directly struck by the hurricane and the metropolitan regions that served as host regions for the thousands of evacuees he left New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region. Initial estimates indicate that Katrina will likely be the costliest storm in United States history. More than a million Gulf coast residents were displaced by the storm. The research will focus upon the collection and analysis of ephemeral, time-sensitive data. Surveys of evacuees will be conducted in Gulfport/Long Beach, MS and Lubbock, TX. Economic, social, psychological and experiential data will be collected from a sample of approximately 400 evacuees at each site. The study will focus upon three primary economic issues: 1) the number of jobs lost, new jobs created from recovery efforts and job sustained; 2) value-added (in dollars) to the local economy from enterprise operations (including household income, excise and sales taxes, self-employed income, property income such as rents, etc.); 3) total output (in collars) lost in the local economy.
This research examines the topic where little previous research has been done. By looking at the economic impacts on both the destroyed and the host communities, a more complete understanding of economic impacts of disasters will be obtained. There is a strong educational impact of the research, as graduate students from both East Carolina University and Texas Tech University will be involved in data collection and analysis.
