HURRICANE KATRINA AFTERMATH, MARIO TAMA

We are filing from a landline at a local pub in the French Quarter which opens for us sporadically.

The situation feels very Third World with refugees, no food or water aid, dead bodies in the street, corrupt police, looting, fires...We had a cop try to take our gas the other day claiming "national emergency". Some photogs have been robbed, but the majority of the looting has been out of desperation. As one guy said to me, "We aint looting, we're surviving."

c Mario Tama / Getty Images


A girl carries clothes as her family waits for assistance after being rescued from their home in high water after Hurricane Katrina August 31, 2005 in New Orleans. Dozens of people in the area say they were rescued from their homes yesterday but were then abandoned on the roadway with no food, water, or health care.



A man is placed in an Army truck filled with survivors rescued from their homes
Daryl Thompson holds his daughter Dejanae, 3 months, as they wait with other displaced residents on a highway in the hopes of catching a ride out of town