NZ parents wait anxiously for phone call

Zoe Hadium

All Lawrence Lynch wants for Father's Day is a phone call from his daughter.

The last time he heard from Marianne, she and three friends from Auckland were taking shelter in a New Orleans hotel, waiting for Hurricane Katrina.

In an email headed "From the eye of Hurricane Katrina", she wrote: "I'm OK and I think we are in quite a secure building but you never know. The city is closed for the next five days so I'm guessing we will be here until then. You never know it may be longer ... "

Miss Lynch said she would call as soon as she could after the storm, but her family have yet to receive that call.

Mr Lynch is part of a group of Kiwi parents fearful for their daughters' safety.

"The phone call will come in good timing for Father's Day," he said. "It will be a pleasant day if I get it."

The parents of Natasha Rive, Kay-Lynn Mann and Stacey Howes, who were with Miss Lynch, are also waiting for phone calls.

The four young women had been working for Camp America.

Miss Rive, 26, contacted her mother, Claire Browning, by email before the hurricane, describing a eerie feeling: "I won't lie to ya'll, I am pretty scared everyone is so solemn and stuff."

She described the group's bid to get out of the city, but with the airport closed and no other way out, she and her friends, including three South African girls, decided to stay put at the Ramada Inn.

"It's rather scary especially seeing as I got my palm read last night and the lady said I am going to come close to death but will survive and live to the ripe old age of 93," Miss Rive told her mother.

Levin man Malcolm Hadlum's 18-year-old daughter, Zoe, had also been working for Camp America.

Mr Hadlum knows all too well what it is like waiting for that phone call but is lucky enough to have received one yesterday.

Miss Hadlum had also called from New Orleans the day before the hurricane struck.

"She said that the hurricane was coming and that it was going to be just about the worst thing on the planet and that she had to find some solid shelter," Mr Hadlum said.

"I said, 'Try and get the hell out of it or, if not, find the most secure shelter above the water line'."

For the next few days Mr Hadlum waited anxiously for news. Yesterday, it finally came when Miss Hadlum called to say she was with a group of tourists in a shopping mall.

She had spent the previous few days surviving on chips and water and watching bodies being transported away in shopping trolleys before being dumped in skip bins.

Mr Hadlum said his daughter hoped to get on a bus today but was not optimistic about her chances and would probably spend another night in the mall.

He last heard from her around midday and has no way of maintaining contact.

Like the parents of the other four women, Mr Hadlum is concerned about the lawlessness in New Orleans.

Mr Lynch was angry that he and other parents appeared to be the target of a phone scam following the hurricane.

Mr Lynch said a number of the parents had received phone calls at 4am saying it was a collect call and asking them for their children's visa details. He said some parents had given them out hoping it was their children calling, only to discover after speaking to phone companies it was likely to be a scam.

A media adviser for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Emma Reilly, said there were no immediate concerns for any New Zealanders caught up in the hurricane in New Orleans, but the embassy in Washington was trying to contact all New Zealanders in the area.

Meanwhile, at least one, Michael Hurring, formerly of Dunedin, is known to have lost his home in the hurricane.

Four Australian tourists who are living in an abandoned mall say they have been driven to looting to survive.

Rockhampton couple Tim and Joanne Miller, who have linked up with another Australian couple, Gary and Cynthia Jones, told Channel Seven News they were living in the mall with hundreds of other people.

Mr Miller said: "When we first arrived here the door at the mall was actually smashed by a police officer and he said, 'Help yourself ... Food and drink, take it. Don't take anything else'."