HOUSTON - A married couple and their 16-month-old son escaped the rising waters of New Orleans in a pirogue.

Two Orthodox rabbis shared their last supplies of kosher food with out-of-town Jews before evacuating the city.

A single mother of four young children saw two dead bodies float by as she moved three of her children to safety and worried about the fourth left behind with his grandfather. A young father was separated from his fiancée and 3-day-old child before boarding a bus headed out of New Orleans.

And a 28-year-old man who stayed to test his inner strength despite a mandatory evacuation order waded through hip-deep water and found a charter bus after food and hope started running low. They were among the thousands of evacuees at the Astrodome - the indoor stadium converted into a temporary shelter in the wake of Hurricane Katrina that left about 80 percent of New Orleans flooded - and they arrived with meager belongings and tales of survival.

TAKING ON KATRINA

Damon Evans sat on a shaded picnic bench outside the Astrodome waiting to reunite with 15 family members who piled into three cars and a truck Sunday and, taking heed from the mandatory evacuations orders, drove to Houston. They left only after pleading with Evans to join them.

Even as his family prepared to leave, Evans, 28, said he never even started to pack.

"My family got upset," he said. "They kept asking, 'Why do you want to stay?'"

He still wondered about the answer Thursday as he sat under the shade of a tree in his blue adidas jersey, blue jeans, shower sandals and a black do-rag.

An arrest for marijuana possession in 2004 cost Evans his job as a cook at a restaurant in the French Quarter, said Evans, who added that after serving four months in jail he's gotten work through a temporary agency for everything from construction to loading frozen chicken with a forklift. Mostly, he said, the jobs pay $5.15 per hour - and his financial struggles may have contributed to his desire to ride out the hurricane that left about 80 percent of New Orleans under water.

"It was like something was drawing me to stay," he said. "And I was like, 'If something's drawing me to stay, it's for a reason."

"When you struggle for money every day but you're dealing and making ends meet, you want to test your inner being. You know, I watch 'Survivor' and those kinds of thing on TV. "The ones that stayed, we go through so much, you want to test your strength during something that's out of your hands ....When it's out of your hands, you don't know how far you can go. But I made it through the hurricane. I did. I got that experience."

Braving gale-force winds, Evans said he spent much of the time outside and watched the water creep up to the top step of the porch at his aunt's house. He eventually moved across the street to a two-story apartment that was housing about two dozen others who's stayed behind.

He and the others in the apartment began to run out of food Tuesday and held their last barbecue that night. Evans said he stood in ankle-deep water and barbecued dozens of chicken wings.

"I couldn't live on peanut butter and jelly for three months, and my people kept telling me, 'Come on, D. Come on.' "

By the following afternoon, hearing that buses were picking up evacuees near Lee Circle, Evans and four others waded through waist-deep water for eight blocks and climbed aboard a bus that took them and about 40 other evacuees to Houston.

They arrived at the Astrodome on Thursday at about 7 a.m., and Evans said he was looking forward to seeing his family members, who were supposed to meet him on the north side of the Astrodome. He also was thinking about the 10 people who stayed behind at the two-floor apartment complex in New Orleans.

While Evans waited for his relatives, he contemplated his future - one that might not include a return trip to his hometown. He needs to find a job soon, he said as he smoked a Camel, jingled the loose change in his pocket -- $1.46 that included 101 pennies - and sifted through a backpack duffel bag whose contents held a disposable camera and undeveloped photos he took of the disaster, two pair of shoes and a few other items.

"I always heard any other place besides New Orleans, there's more to offer," he said. "In New Orleans, it seemed like their main attraction was partying and Mardi Gras and events. When it comes down to jobs, you're lucky, you're blessed. And if you lose a job at a certain time of year, especially summertime, it's hard.

"I'm going to use this for an advantage to break away and really see what the rest of the world's got to offer. It's a beginning.

"The worst part was over when I stepped off that bus," he said, referring to his ride to Houston. "Now everything else is in my hands."

SHALOM Y'ALL

The three men clad in black fedoras, black suit pans and bushy beards were unmistakable: Orthodox rabbis. As they searched inside the Astrodome and circled the outdoor perimeter of the building, they were on a mission.

"Are you from New Orleans?'' one of the asked.

They were looking for evacuees - Jews and non-Jews alike in need of help.

Zelig Rivkin and his son, Mendel, serve as rabbis at the Chabad House, the synagogue on Freret Street that during Hanukah lights the oversized Menorah.

Zelig Rivkin, who 30 years ago started the synagogue with a congregation up to 150 Tulane students and 35 local families, said he and his son remained in New Orleans as long as possible to help others who stayed behind.

"We didn't' take it seriously enough," Zelig Rivkin said. "And we figured there may be a lot of people staying behind and they may need some help along the way." One of the requests came via phone Sunday night, when a Jewish couple visiting New Orleans called the Rivkins in search of kosher food. "We just emptied out our fridge and split half for us and half for them," Mendel Rivkin said.

But by Tuesday, when their land lines and cell phones went out, they realized it was time to leave. The Rivkins loaded their 13 family members into three cars and local firefighters helped them navigate around the downed power lines and fallen trees on Broadway Avenue as the rabbis and their family made their way to Houston. Instead of seeking shelter at the Superdome, they called Chaim Lazaroff, the rabbi who oversees the Chabad community in Houston, and moved into his house.

"We always preach, 'Love your fellow as yourself,' " Mendel Rivkin said. "But here we see it in practice. These people have opened up there homes and given up an office." While reaching out to the Jewish community, the Rivkins said they were reaching out to evacuees regardless of faith. In fact, they spent a couple of hours inside and outside the Superdome speaking mostly to non-Jews.

"I mean these people are glad to see somebody else," adding that a Palestinian woman approached him and struck up a friendly conversation. Lazaroff said a special service was planned for Thursday night during which Zelig Rivkin would give a talk.

"A plea for help," Zelig corrected with a grin.

Lazaroff said New Orleans Jews would be welcome at Shabbat services at 8 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. Saturday at the Chabad synagogue 10900 Fondren Road. And that offer came with a promise. "We've got great kosher food," he said.

THE SINGLE MOTHER

With a stuffed hefty bag over her left shoulder, Robin Ventris used her right arm to push the stroller and her 1-year-old daughter, her hair in short braids and ears pierced with small gold earrings. Ventris, 19, was returning from a site across the street from the Astrodome, where she loaded up on free supplies such as diapers, clothes and hygiene products.

A film of sweat covered Ventris' face as the mother of four between 2 months and 4 years old trudged back to the Astrodome. But her look of fatigue stemmed only in part from the physical burden of simultaneously pushing a stroller and hauling an overstuffed Hefty bag. She wore a bright yellow short-sleeve shirt, blue jeans and open-toe sandals - the same clothes she'd been wearing for two days.

She said her mother, Janice, rescued her and three of her children from their house in Harvey in the nick of time as flooding water rapidly rose. When Janice's car failed to start, Robin Ventris, her mother, the three children and several others waded through waste-deep water to get to busses on the Causeway.

With the power out, it wasn't long before the pot of beans and rice Ventris' mother had made for the family ran out. They also had no milk for the babies.

"Everybody was drinking hot sodas, hot juices, eating potato chips,'' she said of the days preceding the family's evacuation. "Don't got no grill to fix no meat on. Everybody was eating potato chips and candy trying to make it...That's all we had.''

Along with Ventris and her family, hundreds of others trudged through the floodwaters to the busses that would take them to Houston - and that's what bothered Ventris most about a fight that broke out between two men in the Astrodome on Wednesday night.

"Everybody lost their home and everybody's going through the same thing," she said. "But people have like nasty attitudes.

"I feel like all of us should stick together because all of us struggled together. They weren't walking through water by themselves. Everybody's babies were in dirty water. "Not that you wanted to have you children in dirty water, but there was no other way."

During that walk through foul water, Ventris said, the vandalism and destruction she saw reinforced the idea that New Orleans residents must band together if they hope to rebuild the city.

"Everybody had broken into stores and tore up and vandalized. Every store we saw, the windows were broken. It's going to take them a long time to fix the city up and get it back in order.''

But her biggest concern was the whereabouts of her 4-year-old. When Ventris and other family members left, her 4-year-old son was with his grandfather. She had spoken to him by cell phone every day until Thursday.

"I'm worried about him,'' she said, her eyes welling up with tears.