[CTPP] Census 2000 - The Scary, The Weird, The Sad (Long Post)

Here's a very interesting "Sunday supplement" Census 2000 story from the 6/18/00 Philadelphia Inquirer. Chuck P. ************************************************************* Census takers encounter the scary - and the weird INQUIRER STAFF WRITER By Thomas Ginsberg Knock on one stranger's door and perhaps get a cordial greeting. Knock on 42 million doors, as U.S. census workers have done this summer, and bank on being berated, embraced, bitten, doused and flashed. A census taker in Detroit walked into a police drug raid - and kept counting. A census taker crashed through the floorboards of a rural Texas porch but got her interview while waiting for an ambulance. Census takers have used snowshoes to comb the Rockies and helicopters to descend into the Grand Canyon. Last weekend, one census taker was mauled to death by dogs in Indiana. Scary and funny, tragic and heroic, the stories of the nation's nearly half-million census takers are now piling up in the homestretch of the 2000 Census. Three weeks are left before the end of the operation's most labor-intensive phase in which the enumerators, as census takers are officially known, have gone door-to-door to query people who failed to return the questionnaires this spring. Enumerators have had run-ins with the happy, sad and naked among us. Their encounters have served as a kind of mini-census, revealing a quirky blend of distrust and openness around the country, amid a U.S. government mobilization bigger in numbers than the invasion of Normandy. "In rural West Virginia, some of the folks come out with shotguns," said Julia Ho, a regional spokeswoman. "Enumerators really have to depend on their wits." Sixteen census workers have died on the job. But enumerators also have saved lives. Along the way they have crashed into wild turkeys, set off prison alarms, rescued people from elevators, counted at least one self-described space traveler, and confronted dogs. A lot of dogs. On June 10, Dorothy Stewart, a 71-year-old enumerator, was fatally attacked by a pack of dogs in front of a house in Nashville, Ind. She became the first census taker to die this year while at a respondent's home. Six other census workers - not all enumerators - have died in car accidents, and nine died of heart attacks or strokes. Many census takers have been injured or attacked. It's not yet clear whether the fatality rate is higher than in years past. "We have sent out the strongest signal we can that our first concern is safety," said Kenneth Prewitt, the Census Bureau director. Dog bites are the primary injury every decade, and the Census Bureau has recorded at least 200 this year. Last month in Southern California, enumerator Kenneth P. Kasoni approached a house with a large, barking canine in the yard. He left, then returned with a dog bone on a day that happened to be the beast's birthday, said a regional spokeswoman, Lynn Uyeda. So impressed was the owner that he happily answered all the questions, and the Census Bureau reimbursed Kasoni $2.15 for one "five-inch dog bone." Census officials acknowledge that public antagonism and distrust have made the door-to-door work more dicey. These are, after all, just temporary workers who earn between $9.25 and $18 an hour, depending on the area. Take the enumerator in rural Texas, Socorro Meza, who had a resistant resident on her route. Meza said she visited the house three times and saw a person peek from behind curtains but never open the door. On her fourth attempt, Meza took an unlucky step and crashed through the porch floor, bruising herself badly. While a neighbor helped lift Meza out, the resident arrived home, apologized profusely, and promptly answered Meza's questions - while the enumerator waited for an ambulance. "I've been to your home four times to attempt an interview," Meza recalled telling the resident, "and now I'm going to get it from you!" In Kansas, regional officials said one resister chased away a census taker by drenching him and his papers with a garden hose. The enumerator returned wearing a rain slicker and brandishing an umbrella. The bemused resident gave up and answered his questions. One reason given for not answering the questionnaire already is becoming legend among census workers. In Salt Lake City, an enumerator knocked on a door and dutifully asked the man who answered how many people lived there on April 1, the official census date. "The guy says, 'I wasn't here, I was on another planet,' " recalled Anjali Olgeirson, a Denver regional spokeswoman. "So the enumerator says, 'Well, we still need to record you here at this address.' And he did." Getting to the front door is half the battle. In Wyoming and upstate New York this spring, census takers not only had to use snowshoes, they had to learn just the right kind of shoe for the snow conditions, said Donna Gindes, a regional spokeswoman in Boston. In Arizona, counting the Havasupai tribe meant getting to the bottom of the Grand Canyon first. Census workers rode a helicopter down, but then the chopper couldn't retrieve them. So they hiked and rode horses back up, carrying their census papers the whole way, said Olgeirson, a Denver spokeswoman. "The mail doesn't work so well there," she said. People answering their doors in the nude is so common that enumerators almost yawn at the question. There were women dressed only in socks and one naked man holding a dog leash. It is almost summer, after all, and it takes more than nudity to ruffle an enumerator. "We had one lady answering in the nude, she just stood there, didn't bat an eye," said the Detroit spokeswoman. "Well, what's an enumerator to do? He counted her." Enumerators have had their brushes with the law. In Detroit recently, a female enumerator was invited to a barbecue being thrown by a bunch of men and found herself the center of attention. Suddenly, police arrived next door and conducted what turned out to be a drug raid, causing the men around her to run for cover. "She just stood there, she wasn't fazed," Ho said. "She took care of her work and left." In Wyoming, enumerator Ed Clark got his own taste of modern justice. In March he was assigned to arrange the counting of inmates at a new prison in Rawlins. After driving through a snowstorm, he said he arrived to find an empty guard house. He walked past - and suddenly was berated by a voice over a loudspeaker: "Who goes there?" "I don't know that I actually broke in, but it sure seemed that way," Clark said. After dropping off census forms, Clark got yelled at again. "They said, 'Close the damn door!' " Some enumerators go way beyond the call of duty. Laura Iman, 29, a crew leader from northern Louisiana, was nine months pregnant when her 10 enumerators began their work in May. Between contractions, with an epidural drug softening her pain, she made phone calls to check on their work, and the next day, welcomed them into her room - not to count her first baby, Koby, but so she could sign their completed forms. "They told me I was crazy, that I didn't have to do this," Iman said. "But I'm not the type of person to slow down anyway." In rural Virginia, a crew leader noticed a man slumped at the wheel of his car and stopped, called 911, then waited for the ambulance to arrive and save the driver from what turned out to be a heart attack, said Jerry Stahl, a regional spokesman. Last month in Toledo, Ohio, enumerator Phillip Cunningham was making his rounds in a residential neighborhood when he noticed a girl running between parked cars into the street as a car approached, recalled a regional official, Lynne Hebner. "A bunch of neighbors were gabbing on a front porch and weren't paying attention," Hebner said. "He yelled at her to stop and literally saved her life by inches. The car slammed on its brakes and just missed her." Who said the census is just about numbers? "The neighbors were thrilled with this man," Hebner said. "He was in the the right place at the right time." ******************************************************************* ******************************************************* e-mail: cpurvis(a)mtc.ca.gov Chuck Purvis, AICP Senior Transportation Planner/Analyst, Planning Section Metropolitan Transportation Commission 101 Eighth Street, Oakland, CA 94607-4700 (510) 464-7731 (voice) (510) 464-7848 (fax) WWW: http://www.mtc.ca.gov/ MTC DataMart: http://www.mtc.ca.gov/datamart/ MTC FTP Site: ftp://ftp.abag.ca.gov/pub/mtc/planning/ *******************************************************