{"id":2753,"date":"2005-09-05T23:55:06","date_gmt":"2005-09-05T23:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/its-a-big-country.html"},"modified":"2005-09-05T23:55:06","modified_gmt":"2005-09-05T23:55:06","slug":"its-a-big-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/its-a-big-country.html","title":{"rendered":"It’s a big country"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m really fascinated by the reports I’m hearing of the now very rapid mass relocation of evacuees around the country. Here’s a USA Today article about the general wave that’s going out there, with some interesting anecdotes of creative, energetic folks:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

David Perez, owner of a San Diego oil and gas company, spent $250,000 to charter a jet to Louisiana. At a shelter there, he told reporters, he offered rides to California. He got 80 takers, who were put up at San Diego’s Kearny High School. Perez then turned the jet around and went back for another load of evacuees. (More here)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As well as startling stats:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Some resilient, middle-class evacuees are already putting down new roots elsewhere. In Baton Rouge and Jackson, Miss., so many of them are buying houses that Sen. David Vitter, R-La., calls it "the great land rush." The average home price in Baton Rouge has jumped about $25,000, to $200,000, since Katrina, real estate agent Beth Alford says. One New Orleans law firm bought 50 houses in Baton Rouge, sight unseen, says Ann Prewitt, a Madison, Miss., agent.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Camp Edwards on Cape Cod gears up<\/a><\/p>\n

Vignettes from NC<\/a><\/p>\n

In FL, at a thoroughbred-training center<\/a><\/p>\n

In Michigan<\/a><\/p>\n

Oklahoma<\/a><\/p>\n

Cruise ships<\/a><\/p>\n

I am pretty fascinated about how all of this works, and will work, and what the consquences will be. Of course so much depends on the future of New Orleans proper and the desires of the evacuees themselves. What is this mass forced migration going to do to the economic, demographic and social landscape? Do people have a choice when they’re evacuated like this? I mean..what if they don’t want to go to Cape Cod? I suppose when you have lost everything, you take what you can get, but the disruption of family and social ties is going to be tremendous. What I’m looking for are more stories that will get to the mechanics of all of this and explain it to me, being more exact as to what areas of the Gulf Coast are thought to be more or less permanently uninhabitable now, what those residents are thinking, what FEMA is doing with them, what choices they have, and what in the world they hope to do now…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m really fascinated by the reports I’m hearing of the now very rapid mass relocation of evacuees around the country. Here’s a USA Today article about the general wave that’s going out there, with some interesting anecdotes of creative, energetic folks: David Perez, owner of a San Diego oil and gas company, spent $250,000 to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nIt's a big country - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/its-a-big-country.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It's a big country - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’m really fascinated by the reports I’m hearing of the now very rapid mass relocation of evacuees around the country. Here’s a USA Today article about the general wave that’s going out there, with some interesting anecdotes of creative, energetic folks: David Perez, owner of a San Diego oil and gas company, spent $250,000 to…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/its-a-big-country.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-09-05T23:55:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"It's a big country - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/its-a-big-country.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"It's a big country - Via Media","og_description":"I’m really fascinated by the reports I’m hearing of the now very rapid mass relocation of evacuees around the country. Here’s a USA Today article about the general wave that’s going out there, with some interesting anecdotes of creative, energetic folks: David Perez, owner of a San Diego oil and gas company, spent $250,000 to…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/its-a-big-country.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2005-09-05T23:55:06+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/its-a-big-country.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/its-a-big-country.html","name":"It's a big country - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-09-05T23:55:06+00:00","dateModified":"2005-09-05T23:55:06+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/its-a-big-country.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/its-a-big-country.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/its-a-big-country.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"It’s a big country"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}