FERRIDAY, La. – This wasn’t the first day of classes Svetlana Sevostyanova had pictured.

The sophomore at the University of New Orleans and her friends were supposed to start the new semester Monday. Instead, they sat in the Concordia Parish Community Center in a hurricane evacuee shelter set up by the Red Cross.

The friends fled New Orleans Saturday ahead of Hurricane Katrina, but that wasn’t the longest journey they’ve made recently. All five are from Russia, and moved to New Orleans to attend college a year ago. But for the second time in 10 months, they’ve been forced to evacuate the city to avoid a hurricane.

“This was all new for us last year during Ivan,” Sevostyanova said. “We don’t have hurricanes in Russia.”

Last year the group went to Houston when Hurricane Ivan hit the Gulf Coast in October. This time they came northward, eventually landing at the shelter in Ferriday.

Sevostyanova said she fears the group’s apartment is probably flooded, though they plan to go back when it is safe to see what’s there.

“We’ve been renting an apartment near St. Charles Street. It’s probably floating right now, but we hope to go back somewhere there,” Sevostynaova said. “We hope our university will be safe too.”

The Concordia Parish Community Center housed 235 people Sunday night and Monday during the storm, White said.

A shelter set up by the First Baptist Church, Vidalia in the church gymnasium had 107 people overnight, pastor Dan Glenn said.

Nearly all those evacuees were from the New Orleans area, shelter officials said.

One of those was Maxine Richardson, who came to Ferriday from the New Orleans area because her husband’s family is from Vidalia. Richardson said she and the other evacuees had received excellent treatment at the shelter from the volunteers and other helpful locals.

“I couldn’t ask for any better conditions away from home,” Richardson said. “It’s almost like a resort compared to what you could expect.”

One of the evacuees at First Baptist in Vidalia was Angela Jiles, who left Gretna, La., a town near New Orleans, to come north and west and avoid the storm.

“We finally gave up on finding a hotel room, so we asked a police officer and he brought us here,” Jiles said.

White said it’s anybody’s guess as to when evacuees will be able to begin heading back. He said he will participate in a conference call with the Louisiana Shelter Task Force tonight to see when some evacuees from south Louisiana might be able to begin heading home.