Tracking Migratory Behavior of Hurricane Katrina Evacuees: A Three-Stage Sample of New Orleanians

James Elliott, Tulane University

The proposed study will report on Phase I of a larger research project designed to track and analyze migratory behavior among New Orleanians displaced by Hurricane Katrina, which triggered the largest, most complete urban evacuation in U.S. history. While the social scientific literature on migration and urbanization has a long tradition, this genre has never before addressed such a large, unplanned social experiment as the mandatory evacuation of an entire city. The primary objectives of the proposed paper are to identify a multi-stage sample of evacuees; design and implement a survey that will collect data on their short-term migratory behavior (to be fielded in Fall/Winter 2005); and to test hypotheses about this behavior to assess how well extant theories and perspectives predict or must be amended to understand extreme scenarios of mass internal migration.