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Briton tells of Katrina nightmare By Helen Neill BBC Radio One Stuart Bird's summer-of-a-lifetime trip turned into a nightmare when Hurricane Katrina bore down on New Orleans. When the eighteen-year-old and his friends got the order to evacuate the city, like many tourists, they found they had no way of getting out. Their hotel manager initially persuaded the boys to ignore advice to go to the city's now notorious Superdome. The pictures Stuart, 18, from Rugby, took show the devastation of the hurricane, and rising flood waters, taken from his room. Then, running out of food and water by the...

A group of female hurricane Katrina survivors were told to show their breasts if they wanted to be rescued, a British holidaymaker has revealed. Ged Scott watched as American rescuers turned their boat around and sped off when the women refused. The account was just another example of the horror stories emerging from the hurricane disaster zone. Mr Scott, 36, of Liverpool, was with his wife and seven-year-old daughter in the Ramada Hotel when the flood waters started rising. "At one point, there were a load of girls on the roof of the hotel saying 'Can you help us?' and...

Female survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans were urged by government rescuers to flash their breasts in order to receive help in the immediate aftermath of the storm. That according to English tourists who are now just returning to the United Kingdom, relating their horror stories to British media.

A FAMILY stranded for a week in the hurricane hell of New Orleans were plucked to safety yesterday — by The Sun. {U.K. Journalists} And last night relieved mum Anna Jenkins told our team: “We prayed to God someone would save us and he sent you. Thank you.” Anna, 44, and her family had spent days living on packaged food and soft drinks which husband Tim grabbed by swimming into a submerged fuel station — braving corpses and poisonous snakes. But their agony ended after a passing volunteer told Sun staff in the area of their plight and we rushed...

JENNY SACHS Jenny Sachs, of Sheffield, told how soldiers had to smuggle her out of the Superdome in secret. She said they had told her the lights would go out before the rescue, and warned her not to use a torch for fear of attack. She was one of about 30 Britons who, realising they could not escape the city, fled to the stadium for shelter. The military got us out, which we were all thankful for "It has hit me more now I am at home, when you can have clean water, how bad it was," she said. She...

News'We feared for our lives in the hell of the Superdome' by ROBIN YAPP, Daily Mail 09:28am 5th September 2005 Survivor: Jane Wheeldon Britons returning from the horrors of New Orleans have told how they feared for their lives as violent gangs ran out of control. Tourists and backpackers arriving back in the UK said the city's Superdome, initially sought out as a safe haven from Hurricane Katrina, had quickly turned into a place of fear. They witnessed scenes of murder and looting, women were threatened with rape and racial tensions grew daily. Have your say » Survivors praised the...

Prime Minister Tony Blair apologised to Britons caught up in Hurricane Katrina who complained of a lack of support from Foreign Office officials. But the Prime Minister said diplomats had been working round the clock to try to help stranded UK citizens and some were now in New Orleans itself. He promised they would do all they could to get any Britons still stranded to safety. Mr Blair, speaking in a round of broadcast interviews in Beijing where he was holding trade talks, said: "It's been really tough for people, I know that, but it's been tough for our officials...

Our terrifying ordeal By Sean O'Neil and Joanna Bale TWO words on the boarding pass that secured Will Nelson a club-class seat on a flight from Dallas to Gatwick tell everything about the last week of his summer in America. Alongside the flight details is stamped: “Hurricane Evacuee”. Mr Nelson, and other Britons returning from New Orleans yesterday, will keep the boarding passes as souvenirs of the most frightening experience of their lives, being trapped in the city’s Superdome stadium. As the first Britons caught by Hurricane Katrina returned home, the US authorities said that all 240,000 residents of New...

You're on your own, Britain's victims told Mark Townsend Sunday September 4, 2005 The Observer British families trapped in New Orleans last night claimed that US authorities had refused to evacuate them as Hurricane Katrina approached the city. Although assistance was offered to US residents, British nationals were told they would have to fend for themselves. According to those who remain stranded in the stricken city, police had visited hotels and guest houses on the eve of the hurricane offering to evacuate Americans, but not Britons. The order meant UK holidaymakers without cars were left helpless in the face of...

A SCOT who survived Hurricane Katrina yesterday told how her hotel was taken over by armed looters as New Orleans descended into chaos. Trainee teacher Cherie Smith, 23, from Paisley, Renfrewshire, described how gun-wielding locals became increasingly desperate for food and water in the catastrophic aftermath of the hurricane. Smith and her friends Dawn Plunkett and Natalie Train, both from Edinburgh, only escaped the chaos and devastation in the city after a treacherous 30-hour road journey through flooded and blocked roads. The arts and drama graduate finally returned yesterday afternoon for a reunion with her parents Matt, 46, and Lesley,...

TERRIFIED British students tell of dead bodies, rape, crack, gunshots, filth and a sickening stench filling the thick air. From Ryan Parry, Us Correspondent, Inside The New Orleans Superdome BRITISH students told yesterday how they stepped out of the horror of Hurricane Katrina into the hell of their Superdome "shelter". A place of refuge became a terrifying trap, where knives and guns, crack cocaine use, threats of violence and racial abuse were rife. Jamie Trout, 22, who kept a record of his four days there, said: "It was like something out of Lord of the Flies - one minute everything...

Around 30 Britons sheltering in a sports stadium after Hurricane Katrina are being re-located to hotels in Texas, the Foreign Office said. The move comes after stories emerged of violent confrontations, bullying and shortages of food and water at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans. Overall, the Foreign Office said there were around 100 British people in Louisiana when the hurricane struck. A Foreign Office spokesman said: "There were 20 to 30 British people in the dome, and they are being moved out to hotels in Dallas and Houston and other places in Texas. "There is a lot of confusion...