A newlywed couple from Ireland who travelled to New Orleans for their honeymoon told today how they were rescued from the squalor and mayhem of the storm-ravaged city.
Jean and Michael Leydon, who tied the knot three weeks ago, said looters, street gangs and soldiers
Jean Leydon and husband Michael at Dublin airport after escaping the disaster stricken US city New Orleans
flanked flooded streets as they waded from their hotel to a makeshift refugee camp in a sports arena.
The couple, from Dromahair, Co Leitrim, joined hundreds of other holidaymakers in a bid to flee the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
"We decided as a group that we would walk the streets together block by block, not lose anybody along the way, and we would make our way to the convention centre," Mrs Leydon said.
But along the two-mile journey near the ironically named Canal Street, police warned them to steer clear of the Superdome and convention centre.
Gangs were said to be taking control of areas with little law or order in the dome. Mrs Leydon said the group had to put their faith in safety in numbers or face days marooned in the middle of the flooded, stinking city.
"We asked every officer along the way 'Is this the best thing to do?' and some said 'Yes' and others, the majority, said 'You do not want to go there. Whatever you do, do not go there. It was too dangerous,"' she said.
Michael Leydon
The couple, who arrived back in Dublin today, said it was obvious the group were tourists attempting to reach safety and they took the advice of police and avoided the Superdome.
British and Irish travellers who returned home after braving the sports arena have told of shootings, rapes and fights breaking out in the complex.
"We had to walk past the convention centre and it was scary. We definitely made the right decision not to go there," Mr Leydon told RTE Radio.
"We heard comments as we were passing, you know, we can take them. We saw knives being flicked, head down and keep going. There was whole families just camped on the side and utter squalor is the only way to describe it.
"I suppose our hardship was on a different level than theirs - theirs was obviously much worse. We knew how lucky we were, we just wanted to go home."
The pair, along with the rest of the group were eventually taken to relative safety where their luck changed.
A reporter spotted the Irish couple and offered to take them out of New Orleans. They were driven from the city by the news crew along with two other couples after wading across sewage-covered roads.
"We had to walk through absolute... they called it the swamp, but it's basically going through the bathroom of 2,500 people. It was disgusting," Mrs Leydon said.
Disaster struck early on Monday morning, leaving 1,400 guests, employees and their families stranded in the hotel.
"There was no sanitation in the hotel. They had actually brought in the employees' families and they were staying in the hotel. There was dogs roaming the corridors. It was a hotel in name only," said Mr Leydon.
"You had the choice of either staying in the hotel with limited food or water, no electricity, or you could leave and go to the arena or convention centre, that was up to yourself," Mrs Leydon added.
"It was only then we realised how serious it was. We didn't realise until they made the announcements in the hotel and that totally freaked us out." After endless promises that buses were on their way to the hotel, the guests joined together and agreed to make a burst for safety.
The newlyweds recalled seeing a 94-year-old woman in urgent need of medical care forced to sleep on the street, and told how armed police shot over their heads as they attempted to cross the Mississippi River.
The pair said their group also had to barricade themselves in on a street corner in a bid to keep out looters and gangs as they slept rough. After almost a week struggling without basic necessities of food and water, the Leydons returned to Dublin to be greeted by family and friends at the airport.