Grateful for 'little Army angels'

For the New Orleans residents who evacuated their homes before the storm hit, like Darnell Burrows, things weren't so bad at first.

Burrows and her twin brother, Lionel, headed to the Superdome as directed by city officials on Aug. 28, the night before Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the historic Louisiana city. But everything changed once the levee broke and thousands began pouring into the giant arena, she says. "Inhumane conditions . . . it was just horrible."

It wasn't until the 46-year-old woman and her brother left, thinking they'd be better off outside, that they realized the full extent of the devastation.

"It really hit me. I just kept thinking, This is real, this is so real."

Darnell and Lionel Burrows were rerouted to the convention center, which was even worse than the Superdome. "We were like in hell, I'm telling you. I wish I could say anything good about it."

But then she thinks of something good — the National Guard troops who came to her, and so many thousands of people's aid. "Little Army angels," she called them, distributing food and water and genuine human kindness.

"There's a difference between pity and compassion, you know. They had compassion," she said. "They didn't feel sorry for us. They felt what we we were feeling."

Woman thankful for Utahns' help

Beverly Perry waited out the worst of Hurricane Katrina in a Radisson Hotel with her "soulmate," Walter Brock.

The couple evacuated to the hotel on Canal Street the night before the storm hit, and stayed there — in the dark — until military helicopters picked them up on Saturday and took them to the airport to be transported to Utah.

It wasn't so bad, the 62-year-old woman said, other than walking down 10 flights of stairs three times a day for meals. "Going down was a breeze. Going up, oh boy, that was rough."

But they were some of the lucky ones, Perry said. The hotel had enough food and water to last from Sunday to Wednesday, and when that ran out, the military started dropping off provisions.

At Camp Williams, Perry has gotten everything she needs, including syringes and insulin for her diabetes. She admits being disappointed, but just for a "split second," when she learned she was headed to Utah. "I just go with the flow, and I thank God for it."

She's making arrangements to fly to Atlanta, where Brock has family, but said she'll always be grateful for the assistance she received here.