Following are quotes from survivors who lived through Hurricane Katrina as they recount their stories and ponder what their future might hold.

Kioka Williams

"Oh my God, it was hell. We were screaming, hollering, flashing lights. It was complete chaos."

Williams had to hack through the ceiling of her employer's beauty shop as floodwaters rose in New Orleans' low-lying Ninth Ward.

Frank Mills

"He was kind of on the edge of the roof, catching his breath. Next thing I knew, he came floating past me.''

Mills, a resident in a boarding house in New Orleans' Ninth Ward, climbed onto the roof to escape the rising waters. He was lucky. Two elderly residents never made it out, and a third was washed away as he tried to climb onto the roof.

Joy Schovest, 55

"We grabbed a lady and pulled her out the window and then we swam with the current. It was terrifying. You should have seen the cars floating around us. We had to push them away when we were trying to swim.''

Schovest lived at Quiet Water Beach apartments in Biloxi, Miss., where authorities estimate 30 people perished.

Denise Bollinger

"It's downtown Baghdad. It's insane. I've wanted to come here for 10 years. I thought this was a sophisticated city. I guess not.''

Bollinger, a tourist from Philadelphia, commenting on the looting she witnessed in downtown New Orleans.

New Orleans resident

"It's about survival right now. We got to feed our children. I've got eight grandchildren to feed.''

A woman on New Orleans' Canal Street comments as her husband walked with a pallet of food on his head.

Thomas Green

"Everything is totalled, everything is destroyed, everything is gone.''

Green and his family were rescued by boat from the attic of their flooded, one-storey New Orleans home.

Dorothy Loy of Pascagoula, Miss.

"Now we're trying to salvage just a few memories. It's so depressing, really, because you have no address.''

Alex Romansky

"Do we rebuild, do we buy, do we just move the hell out of here?' My inclination, after seeing this kind of storm damage, is that we don't want to live here anymore.''

Romansky, has lived on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi for 30 years.

Bill Higginbotham

"Most probably I don't have a home anymore. I wanted to live, but after this I don't want to live no more.''

Higginbotham, a 91-year-old retired carpenter, built his home on the Back Bay of Biloxi in 1940.

Teresa Kavanagh

"Total devastation. Apartment complexes are wiped clean. We're going to rebuild, but it's going to take long time. Houses that withstood Camille are nothing but slab now."

Kavanagh, 35, of Biloxi, took photos of the damage in her hometown that was worse than Hurricane Camille that killed 256 people.

Landon Williams

"We watched the apartments disintegrate. You could hear the big pieces of wood cracking and breaking apart.

"I lost everything. We can't even find my car. I'm looking through this wreckage to see if I can find anything that's mine. If not, I'm moving on. I think I'll move on to North Carolina and do some work over there. I can't take it here anymore, not after this.''

Landon Williams, a 19-year-old construction worker, ran from a crumbling Biloxi apartment with his grandmother and uncle. Then they had to swim for it.

Paul Merritt

"I've never seen destruction of this magnitude. You see this stuff on TV and you hope that it never happens to you. Everything's gone.''

Paul Merritt, 30, of Biloxi, said the water rose to the second storey of his townhouse, which was one block from the beach.

Ida Punzo

"It was a miracle. This place is held together with God's spit. We're not supposed to be alive.''

Ida Punzo of Biloxi, rode out the storm in her 130-year-old home on the beach in Biloxi with a friend and two neighbors. While the home's first two floors were destroyed, everyone lived.