When Mayor Ray Nagin, the mayor of the City of New Orleans, stepped up to the podium for a hastily-fashioned press conference three days after Hurricane Katrina's passage through the city, he said that the city was, "In a state of devastation."
Being one of the five deadliest storms in America's history, the substance of the Mayor's statement goes without saying, and the economic damage (the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the storm would slow the growth of inflation-adjusted U.S. GDP by up to 1.5%, or keep the country from about $161 billion of purchasing power; according to a later report). It was also estimated by an agency with a similar level of authority, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), that more than 20% of New Orleans' citizenry at the time-- up to 105,300 people at one point-- was left officially unemployed by the storm.
While few are fundamentally unaware of the high cost to both the nation and the city as a result of Katrina, few are also aware of exactly why so many residents lost their jobs and why the economy of New Orleans in particular was so susceptible to the storm's damage.
