Four Honolulu paramedics who spent the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the French Quarter of New Orleans arrived home safely yesterday afternoon, tired, red-eyed and wearing "Don't Mess with Texas" T-shirts.

"We're still in culture shock — being in a place with electricity and running water," said Jill Takayama, who recently completed paramedic training before accompanying paramedics Melinda Shiraki, Rochel Ortiz and Doreen Kitagawa to a conference in New Orleans.

The four women expressed their gratitude to everyone who helped them, from a man who handed over his last candle when the lights went out in the hotel, to a police chief who "found them a car" and escorted them to the Texas-Louisiana border, to the families in Texas who housed them until they could fly home.

The stories of the people the paramedics helped — including a man one of them carried as they were turned out of the hotel and those who were bandaged with rags ripped from the paramedics' clothes — were told as asides, bits of the story the women thought were unimportant to the main narrative.

Riding out the hurricane at the Hotel Monteleone after the group was unable to get a flight out of the city was a little scary, but not really that bad, Kitagawa said. The hotel was tucked securely between two other buildings, and weathered the storm relatively well.

But the situation went downhill when the levee broke, the town flooded and roving gangs of violent men took control of the streets.

"Everything that could have gone wrong in that city did," Shiraki said. "Every day, something new went wrong."

The hotel guests could hear gunfire on the streets, and could look out their windows and see looters running in and out of buildings. Stories circulated about people rioting and dying at the Superdome and the convention center.

The women tried to get word to city officials that they were paramedics and available to assist, but the situation was too chaotic. Phones in New Orleans didn't work. Those outside the town couldn't help.

The Hotel Monteleone lost running water after the storm, and the smell of human waste rose through the structure. Supplies ran out. By Wednesday, hotel officials told the paramedics and 200 other guests that fuel for the generator was gone and they would have to leave.

The guests, some of them elderly and at least one of them injured, waited seven hours on the street for a bus that didn't come. Finally, someone got word to the hotel that the bus had been diverted. There wouldn't be another.

Two of the paramedics, Taka-yama and Kitagawa, cried recalling that day.

The hotel let the guests back in for one more night. The next morning, they headed out in large groups, clinging to each other for safety, trying to make it past violent groups of men to the city's convention center.

The men, Ortiz said, watched as they traveled past.

The paramedics brought up the rear of a group of about 50. They were caring for the stragglers as they fell behind.

"One man had a broken leg," Ortiz said. "Jill was carrying him."

The other women distributed the injured man's luggage among them. They helped an elderly man who was having problems keeping up. They kept the mandate that each of the former hotel guests upheld, and watched for police officers who might be able to help them.

Because they straggled, they found one — or he found them.

An officer they called Chief Riley took the paramedics and their stragglers to the police command post, formerly a Harrah's casino.

The women gave first aid to the injured gathered there.

"All we had was some antibiotic ointment, some bactine, and Melinda ripped up one of her shirts," Kitagawa said.

As they worked, people shot at the command post.

When they finished with the civilians, the paramedics ministered to the police, who were developing rashes from the heat and the floodwaters, and who were exhausted from working around the clock.

The women spoke of one officer who had lost his home, lost his car and lost track of his family. He'd gone to work, they said, because he had nowhere else to go.

The paramedics stayed over-night with the police, and the next morning Chief Riley came to their rescue again. This time, he brought them a car.

"We don't know where it came from," Kitagawa said yesterday. "We didn't ask."

The women got in. With the police escort Riley provided, they drove to the border. Then they drove on to Houston, where friends of friends took them in, gave them Texas T-shirts and took care of the caretakers until they could fly home.

It was a little bit of security that lasted until yesterday, when the women walked into the arms of their loved ones.

"I just can't tell you," Kitagawa said, "how good it feels to be home."

Reach Karen Blakeman at kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.