Mary and Brian Jacks of Waco went to New Orleans Saturday to celebrate their anniversary, but they ended up trapped as the city flooded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
They, as hundreds or perhaps thousands of other tourists, found themselves with no way to get out of the city as evacuations were ordered over the weekend.
They rode out the hurricane in the hotel, but the storm itself was just part of their ordeal.
They spent two days at the Riverside Hilton Hotel in downtown New Orleans before they were finally able to catch a ride with an elderly woman and her disabled son who were fleeing the city.
They said police and troops in the city ignored their requests for help during the two days they were stranded.
The Jacks were lucky, however.
An untold number of travelers remained stranded Friday in New Orleans and dozens of them have banded together in order to stay alive.
One hotel hired ten buses for its guests Thursday, but federal authorities commandeered the vehicles.
The tourists were then told to go to the convention center where they found an angry crowd, but no food or water.
The tourists decided instead to drag their luggage through broken glass, smashed bricks and trash to cross a huge bridge into the western area of the city, but police turned them back and fired a warning shot to make sure they got the point.
They spent the night within sight of a group of police, who brought food and water and promised to get them out, but they remained trapped Friday morning.
"I'm not sure I'm going to get out of here alive,” a Canadian tourist said.
He says he "grew up in an upper-middle-class family.
"Street life is foreign to me,” he said.
HOW YOU CAN HELP: HURRICANE ASSISTANCE WEB SITES
Click Here For Information On Disaster Relief Appeals From The Better Business Bureau
Click Here For Reports On National Charities From The Better Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance
Click Here For Charity Tips From FEMA
Click Here For American Red Cross Web Site
Click Here For Salvation Army Web Site
Click Here For Second Harvest Web Site
Click Here For Catholic Charities Web Site
Click Here For National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster Web Site
Click Here For Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Web Site
Click Here For United Methodist Committee On Relief
Click Here For Episcopal Relief & Development Web Site
Click Here For Information On Southern Baptist Relief Efforts
HURRICANE INFORMATION RESOURCES
Click Here For WWL-TV Survivors Web Forum
Click Here For National Hurricane Center Web Site
Click Here For National Weather Service Web Site
Click Here For Hydrologic Information Center For Information On River Flooding
Click Here For Federal Emergency Management Agency Web Site
Click Here For Louisiana Homeland Security Web Site
Click Here For City Of New Orleans Web Site
Click Here For Louisiana Governor’s Web Site
Click Here For State Of Mississippi Web Site
