Irish newlyweds tell of nightmare escape from New Orleans

Ed Carty:

A NEWLYWED couple from Ireland who travelled to New Orleans for the honeymoon of their dreams told yesterday how they were rescued from the squalor and mayhem of the storm-ravaged city.

Jean and Michael Leydon, who were married three weeks ago, said looters, street gangs and soldiers flanked flooded streets as they waded from their hotel to a makeshift refugee camp in a sports arena.

The couple, from Dromahair, Co Leitrim, joined hundreds of other holidaymakers in a bid to flee the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

“We decided as a group that we would walk the streets together block by block, not lose anybody along the way, and we would make our way to the convention centre,” Ms Leydon said.

But along the three-kilometre journey, police warned them to steer clear of the Superdome and Convention Centre. Gangs were said to be taking control of areas with little law or order in the dome.

The couple, who arrived back in Dublin yesterday, said it was obvious the group were tourists attempting to reach safety and they took the advice of police and avoided the Superdome.

Other Irish travellers who returned home after braving the sports arena have told of shootings, rapes and fights breaking out in the complex.

“We had to walk past the Convention Centre and it was scary. We definitely made the right decision not to go there,” Mr Leydon told RTÉ Radio.

The pair, along with the rest of the group, were eventually taken to relative safety where their luck changed. A reporter spotted the Irish couple and offered to take them out of New Orleans.

The newlyweds recalled seeing a 94-year-old woman in urgent need of medical care forced to sleep on the street and told how armed police shot over their heads as they attempted to cross the Mississippi River.

The pair said their group also had to barricade themselves in on a street corner in a bid to keep out looters and gangs as they slept rough. After almost a week struggling without basic necessities of food and water, the Leydons returned to Dublin and were greeted by family and friends at the airport.

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