Survey: New Orleans under 190,000 peopleNEW ORLEANS - Fewer than 190,000 people are living in New Orleans a year after Hurricane Katrina, according to a door-to-door survey released Thursday. The population of 187,525 is about 41 percent of the 454,000 people estimated to be living in Orleans Parish before the storm hit Aug. 29, 2005. A spokeswoman for the Louisiana Recovery Authority, Natalie Wyeth, called the results "the definitive, most precise set of numbers we've seen." The survey was conducted for the authority and the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals by the Louisiana Public Health Institute. It involved a sampling of homes from all over the city, said Alden Henderson, who is with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and was involved in pushing for the survey. He said the survey used a method commonly employed by the Census Bureau. The results are meant to help planners determine where clinics, schools, transit systems and other key infrastructure should be placed, Wyeth said. Population estimates have ranged widely for New Orleans. A local demographer who has studied the city's population dismissed the latest figures as a "fairly significant underestimation." "This is important, because funding decisions are based on population," demographer Greg Rigamer said. In a recent report, he estimated there were about 230,000 people in the city. Mayor Ray Nagin has cited a slightly higher figure, and last month said he believed the city was on track to reach 300,000 people by year's end. A Nagin spokeswoman declined to comment Thursday, saying officials in the mayor's office had not yet seen the survey.
Richard Morin, an electrician from Georgia now living in New Orleans while he is employed in the rebuilding, takes a break on the porch of a house where he is working on Orleans Avenue.
An area with little restoration has taken place along Orleans Avenue in New Orleans.
Boston College students of Appalachia
Volunteers, in New Orleans to help with rebuilding,
A view of devastation remaining in the Lower 9th Ward district of New Orleans.
A typical street scene on St. Phillip Street in New Orleans.
The view of the devastated Lower 9th Ward district of New Orleans.
A reflected scene of the devastated Lower 9th Ward district of New Orleans.
The Lafitte Public Housing complex on Orleans Avenue in New Orleans is one of many public housing complexes that the city has kept closed, but is a particular complaint to former residents because it suffered very little storm damage.
Street scene in the still devastated Lower 9th Ward district of New Orleans.
A meeting of the participants in "Survivor Village" across from St. Bernard's public housing complex in New Orleans. The group is made up of former residents of public housing who have been displaced by Katrina and then by the city's decision not to re-open the public housing projects.
Inside the abandoned Oretha Castle Haley Elementary School P.S.
2515
The St. Bernard public housing complex that is still closed in New Orleans.
A view of the C.J. Peete public housing complex that the city
continues to
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin at the opening of a New Orleans Welcome Home Center at New Orleans Public Library. (and we are all 'happy' to see him, he got new clothes)
Residents watching a press conference awaiting the opening of a New
Orleans
Judy Watts, Millie Charles, and Virginia Blanque listen to comments of a community planning group at a meeting of the Central City Renaissance Alliance at Central City Hall EOC Building.
Tourists enjoy themselves on Bourbon Street
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