KATRINA / Vast military convoy enters New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS - Four days after Hurricane Katrina struck, the National Guard arrived in force Friday with food, water and weapons — rolling through floodwaters in a vast truck convoy with orders to retake the streets and bring relief to the suffering.

The trucks began arriving at the New Orleans Convention Center, where 15,000 to 20,000 hungry and desperate refugees had taken shelter.

For a day or more, corpses have lain abandoned outside the building, and many storm refugees have complained bitterly that they had been forsaken by the government.

The open-topped trucks carried huge boxes of relief supplies. Soldiers sat in the backs of some of the trucks, their rifles pointing skyward.

Earlier Friday, evacuees at the center had said they were losing hope. “I’m trying to keep hope alive, but slowly my hope is fading,” said refugee Carl Clark. “Believe it or not, these people are human. Right now they’re crowded like animals. They’re trying to keep their dignity. ... I don’t even know what the Red Cross looks like.”

“Everybody’s on the edge right now,” said Kenya Green. “Every day, it’s ‘The bus is coming, The bus is coming,’ but still nothing. ... They don’t give us no information.”

Raymond Whitfield, said he watched a National Guard truck drive by the convention center, but like most other official vehicles, it did not stop. “The National Guard just drives around and around. I know the police, the National Guard, they got generators, so they can sleep and eat,” he said.