American Community Survey (ACS)

2005 ACS Special Product for the Gulf Coast Area

In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) designated many counties throughout the Gulf Coast as "disaster counties." This designation made these identified counties eligible to receive disaster assistance from the federal government. A total of 117 counties were designated by FEMA as receiving "Individual and Public Assistance" (FEMA-designated IPA counties) as of October 7, 2005 for Hurricane Katrina and October 20, 2005 for Hurricane Rita.

The 2005 ACS Special Product for the Gulf Coast Area focuses on two distinct areas:
           1) the 117 FEMA-designated IPA counties, and
           2) the remaining counties in each state not identified as FEMA-designated IPA counties ("balance of the state").

The 2005 ACS Special Product for the Gulf Coast Area contains information for these two distinct areas for January through August of 2005 and for September through December of 2005.