So how many Americans have been displaced by the storm?

[MetaTrope]

Never mind the body count, which will take weeks to come in. Has the number of our homeless risen by tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions?

[BlueJac]

1. This is numbing.....

[intheflow]

2. I think hundreds of thousands.

How many people lived on the Gulf Coast? 2 or 3 million, maybe? Figure maybe 100,000 are wealthy and will have no problem rebuilding their lives. Maybe 1 million still have liveable housing, perhaps they can wait for FEMA to send them money. I think the number dead will be 50-100,000. So that leaves... OK, I hope my number crunching is all wrong, because by my own math, that leaves over a million people who are displaced.

:wow: :cry:

[acmejack]

3. A million I've heard

I think it is probably way low.

[Dogmudgeon]

4. Five million affected

Actual homeless numbers are not available, but I'd guess a million is in the right ballpark.

This is an enormous catastrophe. The storm surge must have been unlike anything that has ever been seen, even with the Bangladesh cyclone in 1971.

--p!