Storms, insurance turmoil fueling Louisiana population slides

Wracked by Hurricane Ida and facing an insurance market in turmoil, tens of thousands of people abandoned southeast Louisiana last year.

At the center of the exodus was the New Orleans metro area, where the city itself lost more than 7,000 residents who picked up stakes and another 8,000 decamped from Jefferson Parish. St. John the Baptist, St. Charles, Terrebonne and Plaquemines parishes — all hard-hit by Ida — were among the fastest shrinking communities nationwide.

The extensive outmigration, detailed in new census estimates released Thursday, paints a worrying picture of Louisiana's future. The state, which had seen anemic growth in the previous decade, lost nearly 39,000 people last year. Though some suburban areas and smaller metros such as St. Tammany and Lafayette parishes continued to see steady growth, across the state communities large and small, north and south posted declines.

Jefferson Parish lost 8,045 residents from July 1, 2021 to July 1, 2022, according to the estimates. Orleans was second, with 7,314 fewer residents in that same period.

Both those parishes also lost population between 2020 and 2021, part of a national trend that saw cities and urban counties shrink during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. But while that trend seems to be reversing elsewhere in the U.S. it has continued on a similar trajectory in southeast Louisiana.

The county that lost the most people overall was Los Angeles County in California, which lost more than 90,700 people, though that is less than 1% of its population of 9.7 million.

Ida effect

In some ways, the new estimates may confirm what has been common wisdom in the New Orleans area: Ida, which was accompanied by days or weeks without power and months of spotty trash pickup and other services, served as something of a breaking point for many residents. Beyond the immediate damage of the storm, Ida also precipitated a crisis in the homeowners insurance industry as providers went under or abandoned thes state. That chaos has caused skyrocketing rates that many argue have driven out residents.

"Why that's interesting and significant is those outmigration rates are consistent with what one would expect about the loss of the middle class when home insurance becomes unaffordable in a disaster prone area," said Allison Plyer, chief demographer for the Data Center in New Orleans.

Plyer noted the census migration estimates are drawn from IRS and change of address data, which means they traditionally are better at measuring the movements of the middle class. That may mean the statistics are undercounting movement among lower-class or more transient groups, she said.

But, the rising costs of insurance may contribute to a bleak picture of where the region may be headed.

"The people who will stay will be the wealthy folks who can self-insure and the low-income people who inherit properties and can't afford to move elsewhere," Plyer said.

Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng suspects much of the population loss is as a result of Ida, which devastated much of Jefferson Parish. She also cited the "double whammy" of rising property and flood insurance rates, which she called the "biggest threat to home ownership."

Lee Sheng said she's felt the strain herself. Her premium more than doubled, after her insurer pulled out of Louisiana earlier this year. She was originally paying $5K -- now she's paying around $11K for coverage.

"That's going to affect people's willingness to be here."

Terrebonne Parish, which the Census bureau estimates lost more than 4,200 residents, finished third in the country in terms of counties with more than 20,000 residents with the steepest per capita declines.

St. John the Baptist, Plaquemines and St. Charles all also finished in the top 10 nationally for declines.

Each of those parishes was hit hard by Hurricane Ida in August of 2021. The storm's impacts continue to be felt.

"There are still over 2,000 households in Terrebonne Parish alone that are not in permanent homes," said Chris Pulaski, the parish's director of planning and zoning. "The damage was extensive and widespread."

In Plaquemines, Parish President Keith Hinkley said struggles with insurance, FEMA and home elevations were keeping some people away.

"I'm dealing with that on a daily basis," he said. "It's like they just don't want our residents to come back to certain areas of the parish."

In Terrebonne, Pulaski also noted that fluctuations in the oil and gas industry, the parish's main industry, had contributed to some of the loss.

"When people do relocate, they are following where those jobs are," he said.

St. Charles President Matthew Jewell, whose parish ranked eighth nationally among counties in terms of percent decline, said some residents who left in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, which devastated large swathes of the parish, are still grappling with the storm's impacts.

"I am still talking to people who have not gotten paid by their insurance company," he said. "Not everybody has, you know, $100,000 laying around to fix their home after a storm."

Suburban growth

In addition to Orleans and Jefferson, other large cities around the state also lost population. Caddo, which includes Shreveport, lost 3,716 residents, according to the estimate, accounting for a 1.6% decline.

East Baton Rouge, the state's most populous parish, lost 3,109 residents, and Calcasieu, where Lake Charles is located, lost 2,677.

The lone metro parish to gain was Lafayette, which added 2,944 residents.

Suburban parishes headline the growers, with St. Tammany adding 3,176 residents, Ascension and Livingston adding about 2,000 apiece and Tangipahoa Parish around 1,500. Each of those increases represented 2% of the parish's population.

All those parishes have seen at least steady growth in recent years, with some experiencing population booms. That's in keeping with a national trend that has seen suburban areas gain as both rural and urban areas have lost population.

Staff writer Blake Paterson contributed to this report.