Tension continues in Katrina's aftermath

Yesterday, Knight-Ridder Newspapers carried a wire story highlighting the tensions between Katrina evacuees and Texans — specifically Houstonians — as the Gulf Coast diaspora continues.

Some Houston residents say they are growing uneasy about their "guests," following a trail of hotel rooms left ransacked by evacuees and as Houston experiences a sharp jump in its homicide rate, with at least 33 Katrina refugees being involved in 25 killings in that city.

In Houston, where the greatest influx of evacuees flocked, some residents are blaming evacuees for a dramatic increase in slayings. And officials say they are spending an additional $180,000 each school day for the 6,000 Katrina students enrolled in Houston public schools.

As expenses climb, and tensions mount, elected officials in Texas are choosing their words carefully about the evacuees, wanting to still express sympathy for those left homeless by Katrina's force, while at the same time acknowledging some problems that have arisen.

Once promoting Texas' "vigor of the human spirit" to help the storm victims, Gov. Rick Perry, in a recent statement to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, sounded more like he was issuing a veiled warning, rather than a welcome, to the people left homeless by Katrina.

"It is up to evacuees and their families to choose where they put down roots.

"If they choose to settle in Texas, I fully expect they will be law-abiding citizens who contribute to our state," Perry said.

Warren Jenkins, a 64-year-old New Orleans evacuee staying in Houston, took exception to the idea that all evacuees are misbehaving: "There are a lot of good people from Louisiana," he said. And that's true, but there are still strains, as the article noted: the fights at school, the evacuees still living in hotels, the burden on the welfare and health care systems, the crime. Those things are to be expected after such a large population shift, though, an expert says:

An unexpected convergence of races and cultures can cause "some unrest and discomfort," [founding director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture Lonnie] Bunch said. "As long as there is that sense of uncertainty, you've got these kinds of tensions that seem to be happening in Texas. This is something we're going to grapple with for a long time."

In the long run, the evacuees are sort of a statistical drop in the bucket: Texas gets about 400,000 new residents a year, so the unusual thing about the Katrina influx wasn't so much the number of evacuees, but more that they all arrived at the same time. The evacuees who stay will probably get used to the culture clash and the state and city budgets will eventually adjust — but getting to that point will be interesting to watch.