Evacuation: It's still not happening like it should

A day after the National Guard finally arrived in force and began mass evacuations, thousands of people remained behind Saturday as fires belched ribbons of smoke over the city and sporadic gunfire echoed through the night.

Thousands from the Superdome were taken to Texas on air-conditioned buses, but early Saturday the operation was halted — with 2,000 in the stadium alone still to be evacuated five days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall.

At the New Orleans Convention Center, where as many as 20,000 people have gathered since the storm, Jennifer Washington was among the frustrated evacuees who spent another morning waiting for buses to come.

"At first they said 6:30 this morning, then they said 9, but there are no buses. They promised us buses," said Washington, 25, who has four children but lost them in the storm.

meanwhile, it's money out first, everybody else just be patient...

(thanks to atrios...)

At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses pulled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line — much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the Superdome since last Sunday.

"How does this work? They (are) clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The National Guard blocked him as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage.

The 700 had been trapped in the hotel, near the Superdome, but conditions were considerably cleaner, even without running water, than the unsanitary crush inside the dome. The Hyatt was severely damaged by the storm. Every pane of glass on the riverside wall was blown out.

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