This Washington Post article gives some insight into why many poor people didn’t evacuate New Orleans before hurricane Katrina hit.
In particular, this comment caught my eye:

“It’s hard to just get up and go when you don’t have anything,” Jermaine said. “Besides, everything we know is in New Orleans.”

Many years ago, Katie was a semester-long substitute teacher in a high school special ed class. Many of her students were bussed from the poorer parts of Austin. After spring break, she asked her students where they had gone. She was shocked to learn that not only had most of them not gone anywhere, but that many of her students had never been outside Austin.
Guess I should add that to John Scalzi’s ‘Being Poor’ list: Being poor is never having been outside your hometown.

Categories: Odds and Ends