The inside of the gyms are filled with the sounds of laughing children, the smells of food cooking and images of new and old friends sharing stories of days gone by. Everyone seems to be in high spirits late on this September evening. Outside, many more people smoke or just enjoy the cool of the evening. There are too many smiling faces around Stopher and Shaver Gyms for this to be the site of an evacuee shelter. Judging by their cheerful demeanor, one would never know any of these evacuees have lost everything.Rumors have been circulating around Thibodaux about crime and violence stemming from the large number of Katrina evacuees residing on the Nicholls campus, but Tamara Williams, an evacuee from downtown New Orleans, says the rumors are not true. She says the evacuees have escaped the crime and violence and are too thankful to harm the ones who have helped them.

Tamara spent time after the storm at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center where rapes and murders have been reported.

“They gave us a shelter, but I couldn’t sleep there because of all the crime that was going on,” Tamara says. “People were hiding in the bathrooms and using drugs. I saw a soldier have to pull a gun on people, and I did not want my children to have to go through that.”

Tamara decided her only option was to brave the waters and streets in an attempt to return her children, ages seven, four and one, to their home on Columbus Street, where it was somewhat safer. But, when darkness came she had to make a quick decision.

“I wound up getting a mattress out of one of the hotels and sleeping on the steps at Harrah’s, where they had some light,” Tamara says. “I never thought I would have to sleep outside on the streets like that, like I was homeless.”

After returning home, Tamara made one more trip back to the convention center because it was the only place she knew of to get on a bus headed out of New Orleans.

“I am glad I am here,” Tamara says of her temporary residence. “I have never been treated like this before. I really commend the volunteers. They treated us like kings and queens.”

Tamara, who celebrated her 26th birthday Monday, says she appreciates the simple things like a cold drink and a hot meal now. She is especially thankful for those volunteers who nursed one of her children back to heath after he became sick from the polluted water.

“It is not good at all, absolutely terrible” is the only response Tamara can give on the condition of her home. She has received no word from her mother or brother since the storm. For now, she is working on enrolling her children in school in Thibodaux. Her only hopes for the future are to contact distant relatives somewhere in Mississippi. She is just happy to see her children alive and playing on the gym floor.

Arthur Austin, 41; Keith Austin, 37; and Charmaine Austin, 42; faced similar troubles at the convention center.

The trio sit on a shared air mattress positioned on the three-point line in Shaver Gym. The brothers and sister are life-long residents of New Orleans, but say they have no plans of returning after the city is cleaned up.

“It is just wonderful to be alive,” Arthur, the most outspoken one of the group, says when asked about his situation. Arthur is disabled and lives in a building for the disabled and elderly. Arthur and the other Austins have been relying on their faith to help them in these trying times.

“Jesus saved us,” Arthur says, raising his hands heavenward. “I never expected this to happen, but it is the Lord’s will. We are still here, alive and well.”

The trio endured Katrina on the top floor of Arthur’s apartment building on St. Charles Avenue, but walked to the convention center after the storm because, like Tamara, they heard of buses carrying storm survivors out of New Orleans.

“We stayed at the convention center for two days,” Arthur says. “They kept promising that buses were coming, but they never did. So, we made our way back to my apartment.”

After two days of stagnant water, no power and no running water, buses arrived at Arthur’s building and evacuated the elderly and disabled and their families.

“(The volunteers) are taking real good care of us,” Arthur says, echoing the thoughts of other evacuees. “God sent us good people, and they are helping us with everything they can. We are in need of nothing.”

Arthur states his plan for the future simply as “not giving up and trusting in God.”

Not everyone in the shelter had to wait for a bus to bring them to Thibodaux, like Ashona Williams.

Ashonda, who sits alone on her cot in the corner of Stopher Gym, has loss everything, except the few things she has lying around her. Even with tragedy and lost surrounding her, Ashonda has nothing but kind words and a smile for volunteers as they bring her food, blankets or whatever she needs.

Ashona was lucky enough to ride out the storm in a hotel on Canal Street because her mother volunteered to work during Katrina. Wednesday morning, after surveying the state of Canal Street outside the hotel and hearing of the mandatory evacuation, Ashona and 22 others banded together to find a way out of New Orleans.

“We had 23 people in four cars,” Ashona says. “We lived inside our cars until we got here on Thursday night.”

Ashona says she has no plans yet. She only knows she will not be moving back to her home in the French Quarter.

Some evacuees took buses, some took cars and some simply walked, still others had to find different means to get out of the water.

Mother and daughter, Beanie LeCorgne, 75, and Nancy LeCorgne, 52, weathered the storm in their two-story Lakeview home.

“We could hear trees breaking,” Beanie says, relieved to be away from there and on a dry cot. “Breaking and popping, and slamming and crashing into buildings. That is all we could hear.”

When the floodwaters began to enter their home, Beanie and Nancy fled to the second floor where they were stranded until help could arrive.

“We were waving at helicopters with flashlights during the night and anything we could grab during the daytime,” Beanie says. “They would come and get the people down the street. They kept saying, ‘We are coming back.’ Finally a boat came. We stepped off the second floor balcony onto the boat, and they brought us to where the buses were.”

Nancy says their main goal is returning home, but they have prepared for the worst.

“When we do get there, it is going to be a disaster,” Nancy says. “But, we have to move back because that is all we know.”

Within the shelters reside strong and confident people with heart-wrenching stories. Every relocated resident at Nicholls is looking for some other place to go, which means their stories are far from over. Diana Richardson, an evacuee from east New Orleans, is proof that a person can have nothing and nothing to lose but in spite of it all remain a truly cheerful and giving person.

Diana appears to be the most popular evacuee at Nicholls. She sits day after day in her chair facing the entrance to Stopher Gym. She smiles and says hello to every person that walks through the double doors. A stranger to Diana is simply a friend she has not met yet. Everyone smiles back at her. They have to because Diana is infectious.

“I really am happy to be here,” she says, surrounded by a circle of volunteers and evacuees. “This is the best place in the world to evacuate to.”

Diana and her husband, both in their sixties, have little hope for their home in east New Orleans and have found a Houma family to adopt them. They will be living in an RV in the parking lot of a marina, and the couple could not be more ecstatic about their situation.

“Right now we are on the bottom,” Diana says. “I can only go up from here.