Security checkpoint screeners have confiscated ''several dozen'' revolvers from evacuees as they boarded military and chartered evacuation flights at New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International Airport, said Manny Salazar, a Transportation Security Administration screening supervisor from Miami.
The handguns were among their only possessions.
''Most [evacuees] coming through have basically nothing to their name,'' Salazar said. ``Some walk through empty-handed; most walk right through like they are still lost. Some have a little garbage bag. Some have been out for days, in water, and their shoes are still wet. The odor is unbearable.
``It's pretty sad to see them go through, but in a way it's good that they can hopefully start a new and hopefully better life.''
Salazar is among 21 screeners from Miami International Airport who are spending from five days to two weeks at the New Orleans airport. Another 15 screeners from Fort Lauderdale and 15 from Orlando are among the 98 TSA workers currently assigned to screen evacuees there.
The government employees are sleeping on cots inside the airport and showering in trailers parked outside, Salazar said. The airport has running water, but workers have been told it is so contaminated they should not even wash their hands with it, he said.
