When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans with the force of nature’s one-two punch of wind and water, the population of the city fell by more than 250,000 people. The city lost half of its population in 2005, and many of those people put the city out of their mind for good. The lower Ninth Ward section of the city never came back from the devastation, but the population of the French Quarter is growing. In fact, there are more people living in the French Quarter now than in 2005. According to a New Orleans migration map, more than 22,500 households left New Orleans for Harris County in Houston as soon as the storm ended. More than 65,000 households left the city by 2006. But over the last 12 years, the population of New Orleans made a comeback from its watery brink of disaster, thanks to an influx of people from New York, Georgia, and California. Today, the population of New Orleans is 384,300, and that is about 80 percent of the city’s population before Katrina hit.
The massive devastation in Houston is a reminder that people in every state and all over the world are living in the age of superstorms. Hurricane Harvey is the first major storm to hit the United States since 2005, and Harvey may be as bad as Katrina in terms of people moving away from the city. Hundreds of thousands of homes are floating disasters, and the last count was 30,000 people lost their homes to flood waters. No one is sure how many Houstonians will move to other cities in Texas or to cities in different states. But if Katrina is any indication, thousands of people will be looking for a professional moving company to help them pack and ship what’s left of their possessions after making it through Harvey’s 51 inches of rain.
Moving companies are a dime a dozen, according to Google. There are thousands of moving companies advertise their services for short as well as long-haul moves. When Nashville went through a mini version of Harvey in 2010, the city got 17inches of rain in less than 8 hours. The city was under water. And people needed a moving company to help them get to a safer part of the city. A list of services used are here. You need a company that understands the dynamics of short as well as long moves during natural disasters as well as when the weather is picture perfect.
Your provider must be a passionate moving company. One that knows what it’s like to wake up and want to move, because of a job change or because a new home was just too good to pass up. The company should be one of the exceptions in the moving industry that cares about its employees and clients. A company that cares about the quality of service and people’s personal things makes moving less stressful especially during natural disasters.