Factoid: Who's Stupidly Not Getting Flood Insurance?

A lot of the commenters who seem indisposed to sympathize with the plight of New Orleans call the citizens of that community dumb or careless for living in such a location. Yet, a New York Times story reports that:

A...study by the RAND Corporation, a research group, concluded that only about half of homeowners living in high-risk flood zones throughout the nation had flood insurance policies.

Compare this with the figures in this New Yorker blog post by the splendid reporter Dan Baum:

According to an article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune from March 19, 2006, sixty-seven per cent of New Orleanians carried flood insurance on their houses, compared with a national rate of just five per cent