Researchers: Island’s population at 48,000

GALVESTON — In the most data-driven estimate yet, researchers from Texas A&M University calculated in a new report that Galveston’s population dropped 9 percent after Hurricane Ike to a little more than 48,000.

Hurricane Ike struck Galveston on Sept. 13, 2008, flooding 75 percent of the island and displacing hundreds of people, though no one has been able to conduct an official count.

Galveston officials have been predicting for months that the city’s population was hovering between 45,000 and 48,000, just below the 50,000 bench mark for federal funding that pays for Island Transit and the city’s annual housing repair programs. Officials, worried about a post-hurricane population dip that could mean a loss in annual federal dollars, spent the spring encouraging all Galveston residents to participate in the 2010 U.S. Census count.

The census will release its official population count for Galveston in February or March, public affairs specialist Briana Kaya said.

But it appears Galveston’s population will not top 50,000, according to population and demographic estimates conducted by students in Texas A&M University’s graduate program for urban planning. The students used a formula called the “housing unit method” to estimate the population by counting the total number of housing units in Galveston multiplied by the occupancy rate for those units and the ratio of people living in each unit. The students used different data for the West End, defined as the area west of 81st Street, and the urban core of the island, or everything east of 81st Street.

According to their estimates, it appears the population is rebounding after Hurricane Ike, and the city has an opportunity to reach the 50,000 mark in the “very near future” as displaced residents return to the island, the report states.

More than 300 students attending Galveston public schools live off the island, which could mean those families intend to return to Galveston eventually, according to the report.

Some of those displaced residents likely will return home once public housing is rebuilt, the report states. Contractors hired by the Galveston Housing Authority expect to start work soon replacing the first of 569 public housing units that were flooded when Hurricane Ike struck Galveston. Twenty single-family duplexes, with 40 units, will replace 104 units that were flooded at the former Palm Terrace complex, 4400 Sealy St. The other public housing units will be rebuilt in phases in the coming years.

Betty Massey, chairwoman of the city’s hurricane recovery committee, said the population estimate was higher than she expected. However, Massey said she does not think Hurricane Ike forced Galveston into a permanent status as a smaller city with less than 50,000 permanent residents. Though Galveston has been steadily losing residents for years, the city has the capability to develop a plan to attract businesses and jobs and rebuild infrastructure to boost the population as high as 60,000 people, Massey said. She said the city’s comprehensive plan, which is under development, will outline some of the goals and plans for achieving them.

“We as a city, as a community, can exercise more control over our destiny than to sit back and accept something as inevitable,” she said.

After Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, demographers estimated that the city’s population dropped by more than half, from 455,188 in 2005 to 208,548 in 2006, according to estimates from the American Community Survey.

Three years later, the population had rebounded to 354,850 in 2009, according to survey estimates.