Proposed Locations for FEMA Trailers in Post-Katrina New Orleans, 2005 - 2006

The purpose of this study, Proposed Locations for FEMA Trailers in Post-Katrina New Orleans, 2005-2006, is to understand the factors affecting decision makers who sought to place travel trailers in the New Orleans, LA area post-Hurricane Katrina. This data set captures the number of temporary trailers and temporary trailer sites per zip code that were proposed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in conjunction with the New Orleans city government. Based on the TAC-RC-IA Priority Sites Report (Master Copy) dated 29 June 2006, this data set also p rovides demographic, socioeconomic, geographic, political, and civil society measures for 114 zip codes in and around metropolitan New Orleans, Louisiana where those trailers could have been placed. Demographic information includes population, voting age population, elderly population, and population density per zip code. Geographic measures include the area of the zip code in square miles along with three different measures for water damage and flooding per zip code. Socioecon omic indicators include median house prices, income, percentage of individuals attending college, percentage non-white, percentage of families below the poverty line, and percentage unemployed per zip code. Following Hamilton (1993), we measure civil society mobilization potential through voter turn out. Note that this data set does not capture the areas that, in the end, received trailers. Rather, it can be used to test the siting heuristics used by decision makers in the post- Katrina environment when many local communities in the area publicly expressed their opposition to have trailers and trailer parks put in their back yards. The list of proposed sites can be analyzed to understand which areas city and government planners believed would be most amenable to these controversial facilities in the post-Katrina environment.