PENSACOLA - They left ahead of the storm, thinking they'd be right back.
Instead, refugees from Louisiana and Mississippi have filled hotels from here to Tallahassee with no idea when they'll return or what they'll find when they get there.
Hundreds more are in evacuation shelters, including nearly 500 at the Pensacola Civic Center.
Some try to stay positive, knowing they have it better than people trapped in attics with floodwaters rising. Others are frustrated, knowing there's little they can do but wait.
Larry Bishop and his wife, Debbie, came here from Slidell, La., checking into Room 108 of the La Quinta Inn on Sunday.
"Never dreamed it'd be like this," she said.
Before they left Slidell, Debbie put her grown daughter's "Sweet 16" photo albums, baby pictures and a wicker chest of baby clothes on a bed, figuring that was high enough. She laughed about that Wednesday.
"We've heard we've gotten water to the roof," Larry said. "But we can't confirm that."
"Nothing," Debbie said.
They've hunkered down for the long haul, waiting for when the roads home reopen. Larry bought shaving cream, paper plates and paper towels. Debbie plans to buy a lawn chair for her mother, who is staying with them. They both work for the U.S. Navy Reserve in New Orleans.
"We know we won't be going back to work," Larry said. "We're just hanging around enjoying the weather."
Two doors down, Joanne Brennan wasn't so upbeat. She and her husband are from Slidell, too, and also checked in on Sunday. Her frustration grows the more she watches the little news she can find about Slidell.
"Nothing. Nothing. Nothing," Brennan said in a lawn chair, pink lemonade in her hand. TV reporters say nothing about Slidell, she said.
"Well that's because they couldn't get over there," Larry said.
"Well, they could have taken aerial pictures," Brennan replied. "We have no information for the worst hit area."
She wondered how her 30-year-old Amazon parrot, Cracker Jack, fared. She wondered what happened to her two-story home, where she could see the sunset on a marsh out the window.
She said she wanted to volunteer. Do something. But she can't.
"Nothing," she said. "I can't even get the sheriff on the phone."
They left home with $12 in cash and have drained $800 from their bank account. A schoolteacher, she should have gotten a paycheck by now but she doesn't expect one soon. She's tired of eating at Whataburger.
Her husband, Joseph, looked like Ernest Hemingway and wore a brass belt buckle embossed with an anchor and boat shoes. He's been thinking a lot about his 34-foot boat, the Easterly IV, back in Slidell.
"The Winnebago of yachts," he called it. "I'm drinking a few beers. You know why I'm drinking a few beers? It's because I'm going to see my boat: It's finished."
He said he would "smooth" the police with bribes if they'd open the roads so he could check on the boat.
