Xena no match for Katrina

New Zealand actress Lucy Lawless was among the thousands who fled New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina bore down on the southern United States this week.

She was filming Vampire Bats, a made-for-TV movie for CBS, in the Louisiana city.

"I turned on the television and saw 'category 5'," Lawless told the Entertainment Tonight television show.

Lawless joined the thousands of evacuees fleeing the city.

"The traffic was going one mile per hour sometimes," she said.

"Then it was two miles per hour, then five. It took nine hours for what should have taken 50 to 55 minutes."

Lawless then holed up with three crew members and their relatives in Baton Rouge, without electricity but still able to use the telephone.

- NZPA