Life Among the Ruins

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For some, the arrival of the cavalry did little to ease anxieties. Wealthy evacuees hired private-security companies, their agents bristling with snub-nosed automatic weapons and polarized sunglasses, to guard the perimeters of their flooded neighborhoods. An officer of one such firm, Black Ice Security Services, told TIME's Nathan Thornburgh that his company made a run into New Orleans to pick up sacred texts from a Hindu temple and that he promptly received e-mails from India thanking him for the rescue. TIME's Kim Humphreys accompanied a team of customs agents from Tampa Bay, Fla., as well as Chicago, Dallas and San Diego on a mission to safeguard the 27-story Hibernia National Bank headquarters on Union Street. Wearing heavy camouflage uniforms, black vests and helmets, they carried Steyr-AUG rifles equipped with flashlights that allowed them to work in the dark. In stifling heat, the teams checked each room for looters and squatters, using a series of rhythmic chants to inform other team members of what they had found, as well as to indicate when backup was required. No man entered a room alone. "We expect [the looters] are gone by now," says special agent Marcus Custer of the San Diego division, "but we're trying to be cautious."

Having survived the storm and the chaos that followed, those who remained in the city absorbed the evacuation orders with a mix of resignation and rage. Tom Drummond, a bassist with the alternative rock band Better Than Ezra, performed on the CBS Early Show two days before Katrina hit. Although his home in the Garden District survived, his wife's new clothing store was looted in the hurricane's aftermath, only days after her fall collection had arrived. Drummond plans to tour while his wife stays with her family in McComb, Miss. "Got to go where I can be of some use and work," he says. His radiologist father-in-law James Boothe, who drove in from out of state to help them pack, seems dazed to be in a deserted city with armed military making noisy house calls in the distance. "You don't think of a city of 1 million evacuating permanently," he says, shaking his head.

Not all the survivors are going quietly. "Why are they doing this?" demands Mario Holly, 32, who refused to leave behind his pit bull Irene until Guardsmen relented and took both aboard their huge halftrack truck. "I had enough food. I had enough water. I'm straight [meaning O.K.]," he says, dragging along a plastic bag of belongings. Robert Sanford, 62 and retired, sits on his porch in Uptown, drinking a soda and vowing to defy the evacuation order. "I don't need much," he says. "I got 12 gallons of water in the house. I got those Army meals they handing out--pork and beans, Cajun beans. I got Chef Boyardee too. This city will be better when they rebuild because they'll be rid of a lot of them knuckleheads that was causing the problems here before."