Airlift: For Katrina evacuees, Utah becomes a refuge from the storm

Beverly Pugh stepped from a JetBlue airliner Saturday night into Salt Lake City, glad to leave behind the murky streets of New Orleans where she lay for three days after Hurricane Katrina hit.

Pugh was even glad to find out her plane was not landing in Texas — which is where the 152 passengers aboard her flight thought they were headed.

"It didn't matter where I went. All that is over now," said Pugh, 40. "If I had to make it one more day like that, I don't think I could have made it."

But Pugh also left behind two of her sons. She lost track of them after being rescued by a boat from the side of I-10. Pugh spent the rest of the week at New Orleans' convention center until she was able to get on a flight out.

"It was an experience I wouldn't want to see anybody else go through," she said. "There weren't any lights. The smell was ridiculous."

Pugh and other Louisiana hurricane survivors received a warm welcome from the Utah National Guard, some state lawmakers and clergy from various Utah churches as they stepped from the donated JetBlue flight at 7 p.m. Saturday. Applause filled the air as the first passenger off the plane, a woman in a wheelchair, was carried by emergency personnel.

One 100-year-old woman refused to be carried off the plane, opting instead to slowly walk down the stairs on her own power.

Three additional National Guard airplanes were to arrive during the night, bringing another 150 evacuees.

National Guardsmen and state officials led the new arrivals, hand in hand, to get food and medical attention from a makeshift triage unit at the National Guard air base. The evacuees were then quickly ushered to buses that will take all 300 refugees arriving Saturday night and early today to Camp Williams near Bluffdale.

Most of the evacuees carried small bags or had nothing as they streamed from the commercial jetliner onto the pavement. Below, flight crews unloaded the baggage of sparse belongings wrapped in trash bags.

Each evacuee was given a bag of toiletry supplies, candy and some other food items. They were also given a piece of paper that explained what would be happening to them over the next few days and a little information about Utah.

Several officials were teary-eyed as the evacuees — most of them black — filed out of the plane.

"It's just to extend our heartfelt welcome to people from Louisiana who have been through so much," said state Rep. Duane Bourdeaux, D-Salt Lake, who is black and said he wanted to be among the welcoming party because he thought it would help comfort the refugees to see a little diversity.