Many of them described their arrival in Utah as feeling like a family welcome, according to to Air National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. David Thomas.

"Which is amazing considering the ethnic, cultural and religious differences," he said, adding he heard one ask, "Is that a mountain? I've never seen a mountain before."

Their stories, Thomas said, were heartbreaking.

'I've been to hell and back, and this is the worst hell I have been to'

Three animal-lovers with the three dogs they refused to leave behind, camped out on the second floor of the Chalmette Medical Center, living on groceries taken from a store and trying to avoid the stink of raw sewage and medical chemicals.

A protracted rescue brought them first by boat, then bus and finally a plane to Salt Lake City, where they were able to clean up for the first time since Hurricane Katrina destroyed their homes.

"I'm never going back to Louisiana," said Vickie Partridge, who sat in a wheelchair at the Utah Air National Guard Base with her husband Rickey and dog, Mercy Grace.

But if she changes her mind, she will sell her land, which is five blocks from the ruptured levies, and pay back the owner of the Winn-Dixie grocery store, where they got junk food and bottled water.

Partridge wants to apologize to her daughters Melissa and Kesha, who begged her to leave the day before Katrina hit. She hasn't heard from them or her five grandchildren since.

"I wouldn't leave. The weather was bad already and I didn't want to get caught in it," she said in tears. "I've been to hell and back, and this is the worst hell I have been to."

- Matt Canham

'There is no reason to go back to New Orleans. Ain't nothing left'

Floating on a wood pallet and using house siding as a paddle, Adolph Dennis and a co-worker made their way from the moving company where they worked to a dry overpass with the promise of food and transportation.

They got neither.

After a night sleeping on the overpass, just yards from three dead bodies covered in a sheet, Dennis again boarded his raft and paddled his way to the Superdome. "That was a mess," he said, describing the fighting and devastation in the football stadium.

Dennis' stay in Utah will be a short one. He is planning to go to Tennessee where he has a job offer. "There is no reason to go back to New Orleans," he said. "Ain't nothing left."

- Matt Canham

'You could tell something crazy was going to happen'

Soldiers often say the best of friends are made in the battlefield. Such was the case with Kevin Perez and Marco Montalvo, two strangers fused together in the chaos that enveloped New Orleans' Superdome.

Perez, along with his parents, flew to New Orleans from their California home for a vacation just a few days before Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast. They had one night of partying on Bourbon Street before standing in lengthy lines at the Superdome.

"From that minute on, you could tell something crazy was going to happen," Perez said. He watched as the throngs stampeded for food, as gangs took over the dome and as fires forced everyone outside. He saw women trying to tell the few National Guardsmen that they had been raped. He saw the distraught beg for help to no avail.

And the smell just drove his family nuts. They didn't eat for four days because they didn't want to have to go to the bathroom.

"You could see our smell in the air," Perez said.

In the midst of the fear and the stench and the breakdown of civility, Perez and his parents banded together with Montalvo, of New Orleans, and two tourists from England. They created their own little cubby, covered in clean cardboard, and stood together in the water lines each day.

They also credit their safety to a battalion of Ohio National Guardsmen, especially Junior, Audible and Ramsey, who began to restore some order on Thursday.

The six newfound friends exchanged information at the Utah Air National Guard base before being transported to a free hotel room, where they showered and rested before taking flights home.

- Matt Canham

'There were a lot of bodies floating in the water'

Zachary Mitchell, who turns 39 today, is from New Orleans' Seventh Ward. He wrapped himself in a towel to ward off the cool mountain air and said he was thankful just to be alive.

He and several members of his extended family spent days on the roof of his home, waiting desperately for help.

"There were a lot of bodies floating in the water. I haven't ever seen so many dead bodies," he said in disbelief. "The water smelled like it was infested with disease."

As Katrina approached, Mitchell filled his bathtub with water. His small group also had some food on hand. "It was just survival, that's all," he said

What the future now holds is hard to know, Mitchell said. But he smiled as he looked out on the Wasatch Range.

"It's strange. I've never been to Salt Lake City before," he said. "I've never seen mountains."

-Christopher Smart

'We still have our lives . . . I want to move on'

After fleeing her house Tuesday as floodwaters rose, Rhonda Pellegrin, 28, found herself on the second floor of a downtown New Orleans hotel.

"We left our house because we knew it was going underwater. We saw a lot of bodies floating. It was tragic," she said.

But without electricity and air conditioning, the hotel was stifling, she recalled. She helped medics who sought to revive some victims with IV saline solution.

"People were dying of dehydration, the heat was so hot. People were just dropping," she said.

There was food and water at the hotel. But days of crowding in the heat with little word of when help might arrive wore away at the survivors. Hot and frustrated, people would lash out at each other, Pellegrin said.

"In a tragedy like this, you are going to have fights. But you've got to put your head and heart in it and stay strong."

Eventually, Pellegrin found her way to the Astrodome, where she boarded a bus to the airport. Upon arrival in Salt Lake City, she said she wants to put the tragedy behind her.

"We still have our lives. Now it's time to start over again. I want to move on."

- Christopher Smart

'There were fights, shootings and rapes'

For Graeme Coates, 26, and Mark Brood, 24, it was a vacation they'll never forget. The pair, from Cambria in northeast England, had arrived in New Orleans a week before Katrina hit.

As the city disappeared under floodwaters, they sought refuge at the Superdome.

"It was like war," Coates said. "There were fights, shootings and rapes."

From Wednesday to Saturday, the pair and other vacationers they'd met watched each other's backs and waited for help.

"You just had to keep your heads down and keep out of trouble," Coates said.

The pair had a radio and kept track of events as they unfolded outside the Superdome. Although there was food and water in the building, there was no sanitation.

"There were no toilets. So, it was like, eat as little as possible," Coates said. "The stadium was full of smell. It was disgusting."

Although the pair were only two months into a six-month planned vacation, they're returning to England.

"For the most part, it was fantastic," he said. "But we think we'll go home straightaway and rest up a bit."

-Christopher Smart