Population shift from Louisiana to Texas is largest migration since dust bowl era

Houston Chronicle:

Framing the massive scope of the Hurricane Katrina migration, the Census Bureau reports that Texas gained more people than any other state between 2005 and 2006, while storm-struck neighbor Louisiana lost the most.

Texas gained a whopping 579,275 people, bringing the state's population to 23.5 million by July 1, 2006. As many as 160,000 of the new arrivals were driven by Hurricane Katrina, estimates demographer Steven Murdock, director of the Texas State Data Center.

Louisiana lost nearly 220,000 of its residents, clearly exporting the lion's share of its uprooted population to Texas.

The numbers show a staggering migration to a single destination over a short period, outpacing even such events as the Depression-era "Dust Bowl" migration to California.

Historians say from 300,000 to 400,000 people from Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri traveled to California to look for work during the Great Depression, but that migration occurred throughout the the 1930s.

"I don't think anything compares to this in the 20th century in the United States," said Audrey Singer, an immigration fellow with the Washington D.C.-based Brookings Institution who has analyzed post-Katrina census data. The impact from the migration likely will be long-term, she said.

"A lot of people who left the hurricane-affected areas are not returning home," Singer said. "They're being absorbed into the local communities and economies."

...

The departure is enough to change the staewide balance of power to the Republicans in Louisiana while not effecting the blance in Texas. Texas has already gained enough population to pick up at least one congressional seat after 2010.