Storm Lashed

"We lost everything, but the worst part of it was the looters. They came and stole from our rubble." BILLY GOLLOTT, Biloxi, Miss.

"You have to take the scratches. [But] I think it killed our town. I feel sorry for all the old houses." JULIANA DOUGLAS, 9, Biloxi

Samer El Hajj, 26 NEW ORLEANS He was there for a reunion of the International College of Hospitality Management. Instead, he got a three-day master class in crisis control in a Sheraton hotel with no air conditioning. "This experience was the worst to live through compared to all I have seen during the Lebanese war ... The mayor couldn't manage to find a bus."

Ray and Dorian Kutos PASS CHRISTIAN, MISS. The morning after the storm, the father and son left their ruined home to await rescue at the nearby beach. Four days later, they were still camped out on the decimated strand, with little more than a tarp and a few bottles of water, desperate for a ride north out of Pass Christian or a working phone to tell relatives they were alive, if not exactly well. "The house was rocking in the wind. I looked out the attic window, and water was approaching fast. I thought we were done for."

Paula Lane WAVELAND, MISS. As water filled the house where Lane and her friend Roy Henderson sought shelter, Henderson dived into the floodwaters and returned with a small boat that had been tied to a neighbor's tree. Clinging desperately to their tiny ark, 10 people floated to safety through the hurricane's winds. "It felt like somebody dropped nuclear bombs on us. There's a lot of dead people here. We've lost a lot of family members."

"I don't care if they take me to Honduras. Just get me out of New Orleans. I'm never going back there." CHARLENE WILSON, whose son is still missing