Survivors describe week of horror in New Orleans - Yahoo! News

Survivors describe week of horror in New Orleans - Yahoo! News:

"Thousands of New Orleans residents streamed north on Saturday, escaping the violence that gripped the city in the days after it was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Women spoke of the terror they felt as gangs of thieves and rapists roamed the streets and temporary shelters night after night, plucking victims -- some of them children -- at whim and with no fear of police intervention.

'They took what they wanted and nobody stopped them,' said Tanika James, 27, who was among a large group of refugees who arrived in Baton Rouge and other parts of Louisiana on Friday. 'It was the most scared I (have) been.'

Like many of the 6,000 hurricane survivors who have sought shelter at a domed arena in Lafayette in southwestern Louisiana, Michael Davis, 18, said the orgy of violence that erupted in the state's largest city had left him with a numbing sense of loss.

'The New Orleans I knew ain't no more,' Davis said.

'There were bodies floating everywhere. Lots of them. Some had bullets in them,' Davis said, as he described his escape from a neighborhood that was immersed in more than 10 feet (3 metres) of water earlier this week."