Stranded at home

Monday, Nov. 6, 2006 | 7:36 a.m.

Federal figures show that 9 percent of America's households have no automobile, which means that emergency management officials must plan for evacuations of residents who cannot travel by private vehicle.

The U.S. Census figures, detailed in a recent story by USA Today, show that many of these carless residents live in such major cities as New York and San Francisco, where mass transit and walking are typically easier methods of getting around. Some live in remote rural regions. Most are poor.

The number of households without cars has remained fairly constant for 40 years, which means the group constitutes a smaller share of our ever-increasing population.

But last year's Hurricane Katrina magnified the challenges that are faced by those who still don't have cars in the auto-centric United States. While about 1 million people fled the New Orleans region before Katrina hit, thousands remained behind, stranded and trapped atop their homes. More than 1,000 people died.

Some residents chose to stay. But Census figures show that 21 percent of people living in New Orleans before Katrina did not own cars. They likely couldn't have left on their own if they wanted to.

And that points to what experts say is a particularly vulnerable, and often forgotten, segment of out communities. "This is a society that depends greatly on private mobility," Alan Pisarski, author of the report "Commuting in America III," told USA Today. "Katrina was really a wake-up call.''

Some emergency management agencies are catching on. Officials in Washington, D.C., where more than 30 percent of households don't have cars, have crafted a "walkout" plan that incorporates public transit. And Houston officials are creating a database of residents who would need transportation to evacuate, USA Today reports.

While there has been much talk - and rightly so - about the impotent response of federal officials in Katrina's aftermath, it is important to learn from these other, lesser-publicized deficiencies. Many older people or people with disabilities don't drive. And many other residents simply choose not to own cars. Government officials need to track where these people are and make plans for taking them to safety - before the storms are bearing down on our coasts.