From: Second Wind NOLA Web Site

Economic Impacts of the Hurricane Katrina and Rita Disasters

• Small businesses (businesses with under 50 employees) represented over 40% of total employment in the Greater New Orleans Area pre-Katrina.
• Throughout the state of Louisiana, an estimated 70,000 businesses were damaged, dislocated or disrupted. This represents over 35% of the state’s 200,000 businesses.

• The Hurricane Katrina disaster had an immediate and devastating impact on the small businesses of the Greater New Orleans Area.
• Population estimates show that the area has lost 36%, or 442,232, residents.
• Orleans Parish, the center of Louisiana’a economy, had 12,695 small businesses, representing 245,000 jobs, in operation before August 29, 2005. As of now it is estimated that only 2,046 have re-opened. The job loss in Orleans alone: 205,000
• St. Bernard Parish, just east of New Orleans, had 1,295 businesses, representing 17,830 jobs. Per government officials in St. Bernard, only 200 businesses have returned.
• Plaquemines Parish, located southeast of New Orleans, and with many small businesses serving the oil and gas industry, has just 97 businesses operating as of March 2006. Under normal conditions, close to 900 businesses would be in operation. Total job loss: over 13,000.
• Job losses by sector for Orleans parish: 40,790 retail and wholesale; 21,120 accomodation and food service; 29,440 technical and professional.
• Tourism for the months of September through December was non-existent. Mardi Gras, held in February 2006, experienced the lowest level of visitor influx in years. To recap this point, tourism is the lifeblood of the New Orleans area (10.1 million visitors in 2004 . The area, and all of the small businesses that rely on tourism, had no activity for one third of the year. That period of the year is usually when convention traffic is at its greatest.
• In 2004, the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center had an economic impact of $2.47 billion . Those numbers translate to a loss of $800 million to the economy from September to December from the tourist industry alone.