NATCHEZ &045;&045; The Monday bus to Memphis was full, but on Tuesday, Keshawn Holmes and her three children were first to board &045;&045; destination, Detroit, Mich., where they would join family members until the day they can return to New Orleans.

&uot;The house was flooded,&uot; Holmes said. &uot;I’ve been staying with friends in Natchez.&uot;

Holding the 8-month-old, she directed her son, 5, and his sister, almost 2, to sit down in the crowded bus station where she and many others found Monday there was no seat to Vicksburg.

&uot;We’ve seen a 50 to 60 percent increase in our business,&uot; said Gordon Brown, owner of Delta Bus Lines. &uot;People still want to go to Baton Rouge and they want to get with family in other parts of the country.&uot;

Delta buses connect with Greyhound buses for longer trips. In Vicksburg, passengers can board buses for Dallas or Atlanta. In Memphis, they connect with lines going to Detroit, Minneapolis and New York City, for example.

For the Holmes family, on a bus leaving at about 3 p.m. Tuesday, the trip will be 18 hours. &uot;I stocked up on juices, drinks and foods,&uot; the young mother said.

A life-long resident of New Orleans, she expects Detroit to be her new home for a long time to come. &uot;New Orleans is really messed up, and it will take a long time to make it better,&uot; she said. &uot;But maybe it will turn around. I want to go back. I love New Orleans.&uot;

Greg Brown, Gordon’s son and a manager at the station, said buses have been arriving in Natchez completely full on their stop before heading north or south. &uot;It’s been very busy,&uot; he said.

Also waiting to board the bus to Vicksburg and Memphis was B.J. Biberstein, who had worked for a week at a shelter in Alexandria, La., along with a chaperone and lay Catholic minister from the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity of Robstown, Texas.

Mike Pond, the lay minister, and his son, Larry, 14, had driven Biberstein to the bus station for his trip to Ohio to visit family there.

&uot;We’ve been there seven days,&uot; Mike Pond said of the week at the Alexandria shelter. &uot;We started at the coliseum, and then they opened the gym at St. Frances Cabrini. It filled up quickly with people fleeing Rita.&uot;

The experience of working in a shelter was meaningful for a young person, Biberstein said. &uot;They were beautiful people. So many of them had something special to offer,&uot; he said. &uot;They were able to share that small space with each other, and many of them didn’t know whether they would have a home to go back to.&uot;

Bus stations throughout the region have been crowded, Gordon Brown said. &uot;For a while there were 500 to 600 people in the Baton Rouge station, but it’s calmed down a lot now.&uot;