REPORTER: Aaron Lewis
It's Friday, four days after Hurricane Katrina hit and I'm on my way to the southern state of Mississippi. The United States Air Force has offered to take me along on one of its search and rescue missions to New Orleans.
This is the air force base in Jackson, Mississippi, the closest safe departure point for the relief effort going on in New Orleans. The atmosphere is hot, anxious and exhausted. No-one is sleeping and yet the crews stay airborne for 8 to 10 hours at a time. Thousands of people have been airlifted in the last 36 hours.
As I approach the helicopter that will take me into New Orleans I realise that the spot I'm taking means one less person gets rescued today. There's another civilian hitching a ride - a local doctor who's volunteered to help treat the survivors. It's not long before we're flying over the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.
The Mississippi River is now polluted beyond imagination with petrol, toxic chemicals and the corpses of both animals and the hurricane victims.
It takes an hour before we're flying over the drowned city of New Orleans.
We fly low over the city, searching for survivors.
Throughout New Orleans, refugees have scrambled to the high ground, praying for help from the skies. Many have now spent days in the sweltering heat without food or water.
We pick up a man named Emmit Brown along with his father and daughter. Emmit's family is a high priority - his father is a double amputee and Emmit is diabetic.
COLONEL GORDON ELWELL, UNITED STATES AIRFORCE: The biggest problem that we have had is too many people in one spot to fit on a helicopter and trying to get those refugees to understand that we will be back for another trip. It's only human nature to everybody want to get on at once and our helicopters are only so big and so we have to get the folks on the particular landing zone scene to understand that we will be back, we're going to make as many trips as necessary to get them out and we will take them all out.
EMMIT BROWN: Both disabled veterans, both disabled veterans. There's nothing left. There's nothing left of my home. Everything's gone.
We take Emmit and his family to New Orleans International Airport. Many of the evacuees from the Superdome are now here. Dr Meredith helped Emmit and his family find medical attention.
DR DAVID MEREDITH: Well, I'm an ER physician, I'm an ER doctor, I've seen a lot of trauma, a lot of very bad things, a lot of death but when we arrived at the airport in New Orleans I, even as a physician with having seen these things, I was in an emotional state of shock almost like arriving in a war zone.
The airport has become a transit camp. Survivors are literally dumped on the tarmac before they're shipped out to other shelters from around the United States. The critically ill are loaded on baggage carts, most of them clutching a cold bottle of water.
DR DAVID MEREDITH:
The most shocking thing or concerning thing that I found was a lack of what the military had called "command and control", or as a lay person would think, someone to tell me where to go and what to do - there was none of that. It was patients or refugees asking each other with no-one having the answer and no security personnel really knowing the answer either.
REFUGEE: I appreciate them picking us up but couldn't bring our medicine, our walker and essential things we need so we had to leave home just with what we have on. No medicine, no walker, no stick.
The sanitary conditions here are simply awful. Garbage and human waste are scattered around the same places where people eat and sleep.
MAN: You know, got us in shelters, you know what I mean - bathrooms don't work, lights don't work, water don't work. You know, it took them a long time to bring us food. You know, we was thirsty, we was hungry, you know, and I mean bathroom stinking we couldn't keep the babies in there because I mean, it was so polluted.
After days of waiting for rescue, most of these people are happy just to have escaped the restricted zones.
WOMAN: I tried to struggle it out to see what would happen. I thought maybe the lights and the water would come back on but after five days we had to get out, it was starting to get pretty bad. There were shootings behind me, my neighbours got car-jacked, my neighbours on the side of me got robbed. They were breaking into the apartments below me, it was getting pretty scary.
WOMAN 2: We were all locked down for six days. Faeces - we had to drain water through broken glass to flush toilets. You can't get us out of the city, they can't get us out of the city. We got people that can get us out of the city but they won't allow us to get out of the city. That's not right.
Sir, the authorities and the armed forces have been heavily criticised because of the delay in the response, or the perceived delay in the response, do you have any comment on that?
COLONEL GORDON ELWELL: We were completely ready to go while the storm was still hitting. We had charts and maps and we had a plan and we had aircraft prepped and crews ready to deploy on Monday as the storm was still hitting, so that when Tuesday came and we got the go code we were here, we were in place.
Night is falling and I'm ordered back onto the aircraft. As frightening as New Orleans is in the day, at night it's worse. The power still hasn't been restored so most of the lights I see are either fires or torches people use to flag down rescue craft.
We land briefly to refuel and I take a moment to talk to Randolph Wells, the gunner of the aircraft that's been carrying me. He's been flying search and rescue missions for years.
RANDOLPH WELLS: It was devastating, probably the worst thing I've ever seen in my life as far as regarding a hurricane or any kind of tropical storm damage ever.
I've never seen a house completely submerged under water and people clamouring to get off of a 2-storey or higher buildings just for virtually not being able to get out other than swimming or taking a chance.
There is fuel in the water, there's sewage, there's no drainage and it's just bad. I'm thinking most people that have gotten out are going to get out by now and if they haven't, they're really struggling.
The next morning I visit a refugee centre in Jackson, Mississippi. The bonfire of racial and economic tension in New Orleans has been burning for years. Katrina fanned the flames.
GEORGE: Before the hurricane the city was - it was chaos. There was too much killing and racism was at its height. It was like in the '60s all over again.
George now spends his time in the shelter writing angry poetry. His favourite rhyme he calls 'Wild, Wild East'.
GEORGE: News media announce around the globe New Orleans the city of lost souls. Willing their bodies to rob, kill and steal.
Turning their minds off so as not to feel.
The misery, despair and pain ill-gotten, New Orleans city, United States forgotten.
Living in dark attics 200 degrees is very hot. A scream, a cry, a shout - pow! A gun shot.
Stench of dead carcasses, piss and shit. The result of living without the Holy Spirit.
In your dreams recall Thanksgiving's feast. But for now this is the wild, wild east.
It's Friday, four days after Hurricane Katrina hit and I'm on my way to the southern state of Mississippi. The United States Air Force has offered to take me along on one of its search and rescue missions to New Orleans.
This is the air force base in Jackson, Mississippi, the closest safe departure point for the relief effort going on in New Orleans. The atmosphere is hot, anxious and exhausted. No-one is sleeping and yet the crews stay airborne for 8 to 10 hours at a time. Thousands of people have been airlifted in the last 36 hours.
As I approach the helicopter that will take me into New Orleans I realise that the spot I'm taking means one less person gets rescued today. There's another civilian hitching a ride - a local doctor who's volunteered to help treat the survivors. It's not long before we're flying over the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.
The Mississippi River is now polluted beyond imagination with petrol, toxic chemicals and the corpses of both animals and the hurricane victims.
It takes an hour before we're flying over the drowned city of New Orleans.
We fly low over the city, searching for survivors.
Throughout New Orleans, refugees have scrambled to the high ground, praying for help from the skies. Many have now spent days in the sweltering heat without food or water.
We pick up a man named Emmit Brown along with his father and daughter. Emmit's family is a high priority - his father is a double amputee and Emmit is diabetic.
COLONEL GORDON ELWELL, UNITED STATES AIRFORCE: The biggest problem that we have had is too many people in one spot to fit on a helicopter and trying to get those refugees to understand that we will be back for another trip. It's only human nature to everybody want to get on at once and our helicopters are only so big and so we have to get the folks on the particular landing zone scene to understand that we will be back, we're going to make as many trips as necessary to get them out and we will take them all out.
EMMIT BROWN: Both disabled veterans, both disabled veterans. There's nothing left. There's nothing left of my home. Everything's gone.
We take Emmit and his family to New Orleans International Airport. Many of the evacuees from the Superdome are now here. Dr Meredith helped Emmit and his family find medical attention.
DR DAVID MEREDITH: Well, I'm an ER physician, I'm an ER doctor, I've seen a lot of trauma, a lot of very bad things, a lot of death but when we arrived at the airport in New Orleans I, even as a physician with having seen these things, I was in an emotional state of shock almost like arriving in a war zone.
The airport has become a transit camp. Survivors are literally dumped on the tarmac before they're shipped out to other shelters from around the United States. The critically ill are loaded on baggage carts, most of them clutching a cold bottle of water.
DR DAVID MEREDITH:
The most shocking thing or concerning thing that I found was a lack of what the military had called "command and control", or as a lay person would think, someone to tell me where to go and what to do - there was none of that. It was patients or refugees asking each other with no-one having the answer and no security personnel really knowing the answer either.
REFUGEE: I appreciate them picking us up but couldn't bring our medicine, our walker and essential things we need so we had to leave home just with what we have on. No medicine, no walker, no stick.
The sanitary conditions here are simply awful. Garbage and human waste are scattered around the same places where people eat and sleep.
MAN: You know, got us in shelters, you know what I mean - bathrooms don't work, lights don't work, water don't work. You know, it took them a long time to bring us food. You know, we was thirsty, we was hungry, you know, and I mean bathroom stinking we couldn't keep the babies in there because I mean, it was so polluted.
After days of waiting for rescue, most of these people are happy just to have escaped the restricted zones.
WOMAN: I tried to struggle it out to see what would happen. I thought maybe the lights and the water would come back on but after five days we had to get out, it was starting to get pretty bad. There were shootings behind me, my neighbours got car-jacked, my neighbours on the side of me got robbed. They were breaking into the apartments below me, it was getting pretty scary.
WOMAN 2: We were all locked down for six days. Faeces - we had to drain water through broken glass to flush toilets. You can't get us out of the city, they can't get us out of the city. We got people that can get us out of the city but they won't allow us to get out of the city. That's not right.
Sir, the authorities and the armed forces have been heavily criticised because of the delay in the response, or the perceived delay in the response, do you have any comment on that?
COLONEL GORDON ELWELL: We were completely ready to go while the storm was still hitting. We had charts and maps and we had a plan and we had aircraft prepped and crews ready to deploy on Monday as the storm was still hitting, so that when Tuesday came and we got the go code we were here, we were in place.
Night is falling and I'm ordered back onto the aircraft. As frightening as New Orleans is in the day, at night it's worse. The power still hasn't been restored so most of the lights I see are either fires or torches people use to flag down rescue craft.
We land briefly to refuel and I take a moment to talk to Randolph Wells, the gunner of the aircraft that's been carrying me. He's been flying search and rescue missions for years.
RANDOLPH WELLS: It was devastating, probably the worst thing I've ever seen in my life as far as regarding a hurricane or any kind of tropical storm damage ever.
I've never seen a house completely submerged under water and people clamouring to get off of a 2-storey or higher buildings just for virtually not being able to get out other than swimming or taking a chance.
There is fuel in the water, there's sewage, there's no drainage and it's just bad. I'm thinking most people that have gotten out are going to get out by now and if they haven't, they're really struggling.
The next morning I visit a refugee centre in Jackson, Mississippi. The bonfire of racial and economic tension in New Orleans has been burning for years. Katrina fanned the flames.
GEORGE: Before the hurricane the city was - it was chaos. There was too much killing and racism was at its height. It was like in the '60s all over again.
George now spends his time in the shelter writing angry poetry. His favourite rhyme he calls 'Wild, Wild East'.
GEORGE: News media announce around the globe New Orleans the city of lost souls. Willing their bodies to rob, kill and steal.
Turning their minds off so as not to feel.
The misery, despair and pain ill-gotten, New Orleans city, United States forgotten.
Living in dark attics 200 degrees is very hot. A scream, a cry, a shout - pow! A gun shot.
Stench of dead carcasses, piss and shit. The result of living without the Holy Spirit.
In your dreams recall Thanksgiving's feast. But for now this is the wild, wild east.