For the evacuees gathered in shelters across Louisiana and much of the rest of the South, Monday was a day of waiting - waiting to hear if Hurricane Gustav had caused a repeat of the nightmares of 2005, when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated much of southern Louisiana.

At the Rapides Parish Coliseum in Alexandria, La., and the local fairgrounds two hours to the northwest in Shreveport, hundreds of evacuees tried get snatches of information from cell phones and bits of conversation. They had no TV, no Internet access - just the question of whether another storm would shatter their rebuilt lives and displace them all over again.

Here are their stories.

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Julius Young, 50, of St. Charles Parish, La., north of New Orleans, in Alexandria.

"Where I'm from, it's low ground. We got 2 feet of water last time. We went to Marksville that time, spent eight days there. I got my medicine, my clothes, and my family. I pray to God nothing happens down there while we're gone. We can't tell nothing happening up here because there ain't no TV. I'm ready to go back home. Hopefully we'll find everything standing."

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Jeanette Pierre, 48, also from St. Charles Parish, sat with her daughter, Cerry, 8, outside the Alexandria shelter Monday afternoon, watching the first bands of rain approach. They drove north in a caravan of family members and friends.

"We didn't even think about staying this time. We had a lot of wind damage. (In Katrina) I had a tree that fell on back of my trailer. We left at 9:30 a.m. and we must have got here at 5 p.m. They was announcing on the radio where we could go, and we ended up here. … They said it might get here at 25 miles an hour. I don't know what I'm gonna find when I go home. It was too rough for us to stay."

Her daughter Cerry played with a doll, one of a small collection of possessions she brought. "I thought we were going to the store," Cerry said. Cerry remembers Katrina. Her mother said even small storms scare her, like a recent rainstorm. "They had the water on the ground, up to my ankle, and I said, 'Mom, I want to leave.' And she said, 'It's just rain."'

"We didn't know where we were going," her mother said. "I came here after Marksville (another shelter) and they turned us away. I call my brother in Mississippi and he'll watch TV and tell us what's going on."

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Kelly Ford and her mother, Johna Ford, evacuated to Alexandria from Arabi outside New Orleans. Johna said she spent days stranded on her roof following Katrina.

Kelly: "We caught the last bus out of Arabi on Saturday at noon. Brought some clothes, some personals. It took us nine hours to get here."

Johna: "I'm trying to get her not to go back."

Kelly: "The horrible thing last time was going two weeks and not knowing where everybody was. Not knowing where ÃJohnaÄ was. Now we're all together. Everybody we know and love. It makes it a lot easier to deal with where you're all together."

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Robert Lee Bacon, 59, from Gretna, across the Mississippi River from New Orleans

His 7-year-old son, Albert, used a map given him at school to guide the family to their shelter in Alexandria

"My little boy, he remembers the last storm, the first time. He's been frightened about storms ever since. The children feel it more than the parents, I think. … (After Katrina) I rebuilt my house, mostly by myself. I don't believe in taking handouts from other people. We updated everything. New carpets, new roof. Paid for most of it out of my own pocket. That's my home. If I have to rebuild it again, I will. But hopefully it won't be as bad as last time."

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In Shreveport, La.:

Lucille Cormier, 66.

Katrina destroyed her home in New Orleans. She planned to move back to the city this week.

"It must not be meant to be. But I miss New Orleans. I love my hometown. It's heartbreaking, just thinking you might not be able to go home anymore. That's the thought that gets to you. I was planning to go home to stay. I'm afraid Gustav will tear it all up."

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Tina George, 25, from New Orleans

"If it floods again, I can't go back. I can't keep going like this: settling in one state, then moving around, living in shelters. … I just started all over in 2006. It's just been two years and I might have to move again. I might go home to nothing again, I hate it. I just can't keep taking chances. It's a big setback."

"(After Katrina) all my family came back to New Orleans. They said come back. The mayor said they would fix the levees, and come back home. They told us it would be better than OK. But it's not fixed that much."

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Jesse Johnson, 67

"I'll go back. I've lived in other places, but New Orleans is my home. There's nothing we can do about the weather. Other places have earthquakes. Some places have typhoons. Its the way of the world and weather. But New Orleans is my home. It's where I'm staying."

(c) 2008, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.