Earthquakes, Mayor Ray Nagin, and other disasters
In 1989, they had an earthquake where I live.
Why, what a coincidence! We had an earthquake in 1989 where I lived too. Mine was called "Loma Prieta". What was yours called?
I don't know if they just decided to ride it out, or if they couldn't get transportation. Neither do you.
You should watch those assumptions, Tom. According to a 2004 study by the New Orleans planning department (which, of course, is only available in the Google cache, since the site itself is down; scroll to page 13, section 2.1.3), on average 27.3% of households in New Orleans don't have access to autombiles. The national average is just a hair over 10%. The study goes on to note that the percentage varies wildly by neighborhood and correlates, as you'd expect, with income level. Unfortunately the stats for individual neighborhoods are in a graphic the cache didn't preserve, but even if you took just the city-wide average, out of half a million people, lo and behold, you get a number in the same ballpark as the number estimated to have been left behind.
Two centures ago Marie Antoinette sniffed "Let them eat cake!". Today it's Mayor Ray Nagin sniffing "Let them drive cars!". The only difference is, many more people died because Nagin is clueless than because Marie Antoinette was clueless.