Crowded around televisions and trying to use telephones, Katrina’s evacuees were clamoring for information Tuesday about the hurricane’s wrath.

&uot;I have my kids; that’s all that counts,&uot; said Mona Ladner of Chalmette, La. &uot;But it’s the uncertainty of the people we left behind.&uot;

Ladner has been staying at the Red Cross shelter at Community Chapel Church of God with her husband, son and mother-in-law.

Tuesday they watched news reports about the storm but found little information about their own community, which is likely under at least eight feet of water.

&uot;We can’t get through to anybody,&uot; Ladner said. &uot;I watch (TV), but then I get frustrated because they don’t have any news on our area. I feel like we live on Mars.&uot;

Galvin Gabriel, an evacuee staying at the Concordia Parish Community Center, said he’s heard his home in Marrero, La., is flooded.

&uot;I can’t go back home &045; that’s where all the water is,&uot; Gabriel said.

Ruby Labeau, also staying at Community Chapel, is from New Orleans’ ninth ward, a neighborhood just east of downtown where many houses were under water up to the roof lines.

&uot;There’s no communication,&uot; Labeau said. &uot;My uncle’s still behind. We knew people who had no transportation, no money, no way to leave.&uot;

Edward Ballet sat in fairly comfortable conditions Tuesday and watched one of his neighbors on national TV as he was airlifted from a New Orleans rooftop.

The friend was finally safe, but the familiar face brought bad news.

&uot;I know from when the news came on that my house is under 12 feet of water,&uot; Ballet said. &uot;That’s mind-blowing. As soon as I saw the street, I was about to walk off and cry.&uot;

Bad news or not, Ballet has more information about his house than most in Natchez shelters. Across the Miss-Lou, evacuees were glad to be safe and dry &045; but desperate for information.

Susan Andrus of Jefferson Parish and friends at Community Chapel abandoned national news at 1 a.m. when they found a local station that gave more details, but even that information wasn’t enough.

&uot;We want them to fly their helicopters over our house,&uot; said Susan Andrus of Jefferson Parish.

Evacuees at the Concordia Parish Community Center and the First Baptist Church in Vidalia huddled around televisions turned to news channels trying to find out anything about their communities.

&uot;We’re from St. Bernard and we haven’t heard anything about what things are like,&uot; Jeannie Cascio. &uot;I don’t picture there’s anything left. Even though we have nothing to go back to, at least we’re all here and alive and I thank God for that.&uot;

At Parkway Baptist Church, where the Red Cross shelter there had no electricity, evacuees gathered around a generator-powered TV, watching a tape of that morning’s FOX News broadcast. It was the latest information they could get on the storm damage.

&uot;We’re getting drips and drabs (of news),&uot; said Dirk Meyer of St. Bernard Parish, who has been staying at the shelter with his wife and son.

All of Meyer’s family evacuated the New Orleans area to various places around the southeast, but he was worried about two young neighbors who stayed behind.

&uot;I wish I’d given them the keys to my other truck and said ‘just go,’&uot; he said. &uot;Now (the truck is) under water.&uot;

The Meyer family expects their house and his lawn care business to be under water.

But for Meyer, as for most of the evacuees, the most important thing is that they were alive.

&uot;Everything else is replaceable,&uot; Meyer said. &uot;You can replace the material things &045; not your life.&uot;