http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3400892a10,00.htmlChristchurch resident William Thomas spent the past week fighting for survival in the chaos of a devastated New Orleans.
The exhausted 20-year-old returned to his family in Leeston yesterday after being trapped in a crippled hotel for five days and a traumatic evacuation from the southern US city.
Only now are authorities beginning to regain control in the hurricane-battered, flooded city, emptied of most of its population.
Yesterday, police shot dead four looters and critically wounded one in a gunbattle, even as rescuers scoured homes and toxic floodwaters to find survivors and recover thousands of corpses.
A massive mortuary is being set up in the tiny town of St Gabriel north of the city.
"It is going to be about as ugly of a scene as I think you can imagine," US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.
Thomas kept a diary of his ordeal in which he wrote of being racially abused, wading thigh-deep through the putrid water, and being "terrified for my safety" on having to join a queue of thousands of angry people awaiting evacuation.
"Being in that queue changed me," he wrote.
He did not witness the worst of New Orleans' slide into desperation and anarchy, however, because he and his friends locked themselves into their shared hotel room for five nights.
Thomas was able to speak to his family on the phone for the first time in six days last Friday.
"I just said `hello', and mum said, 'it's Willy' and burst into tears which was quite emotional. I started crying as well."
Thomas said yesterday that queuing for the bus out of New Orleans was the scariest part of the experience. He and four other tourists, one a young British woman, were squashed among thousands of evacuees, and queued for more than 11 hours for a ride out of the city.
People in the queue were fighting and getting angry and frustrated. Some fainted and were taken to a nearby building for treatment.
"Basically, we were jammed in like sardines. All around you people were touching you. You could not move. It was the worst 11 hours of my life standing there. My friend Katy (the British woman) was being felt up in line and there was nothing we could do about it," Thomas said.
"I was very scared, intimidated. We were probably the only white people in the line and we were being abused. People were getting really frustrated and angry. Some had been in line for five days. People were saying, 'what's that white man doing in front of us?' It became about race.
"We just stayed quiet and took it because we knew we were the minority."
Thomas had been in Philadelphia working for Camp America and arrived in New Orleans last Saturday to begin a two-week holiday with four others.
Thomas and his friends were forced to ride out Hurricane Katrina at their Park Plaza hotel after airlines had either cancelled flights or were fully booked.
They didn't have much money and were unable to hire a rental car because they were all too young.
"It was pretty silly on our part. We should have done more to get out but we didn't think it would be that bad. We realised we were stuck and would have to wait it out."
The friends prepared for the storm stocking up on food and bottled water – and waited.
On Monday, water was ankle-deep, by Tuesday, cars were submerged.
"There was water everywhere. It was like a lake. It was full of diesel and disgusting stuff. People were starting to walk through water, there were helicopters rescuing people. The hotel became a makeshift shelter for a lot of families who could not get out."
The hotel's electricity and phone were dead, and as conditions got worse the friends grew more fearful.
"People had gone out and looted things. There was a drunken man on our floor ranting and raving and was full-on screaming at somebody. About 4am I woke up to a lady walking up the hall looking for one of her children. She was screaming her kid's name knocking on doors. Another time I was waiting for a friend and I thought I heard him in the hall. I opened the door and two black guys walked past. They said 'you look all scared there standing all white'. The other guy walked past and said 'look at that white nig*er'," Thomas said.
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