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One of his two remaining shirts spun in his relatives' washing machine as he talked about losing the house he shared with his 80-year-old mother, Virginia, in the city's southern district.
They'd been through this before. Forty years ago, Hurricane Betsy forced his family into a neighbor's attic to escape floodwaters.
Betsy was a cakewalk compared with this, he said.
Burtchaell worked as a stagehand at the New Orleans convention center before Katrina rendered it a makeshift shelter, where already deplorable conditions deteriorated terribly for those
seeking help. Seeing the mayhem on his nephew's television is emotional for him. ``I'm just going to take it one day at a time,'' Burtchaell said. ``I don't know what else I can do.''
He is one of 16 relatives and friends who fled Katrina's devastation this week to seek refuge in the Riverview home of Bill and Cathy Welch on Estate Cove Circle. Five more are expected today.
Among those who came were Bill Welch's parents, William and Colleen Welch of Diamondhead, Miss., and Cathy Welch's sister, Antoinette Boyle, and her husband, John, from New Orleans. The
caravan also included a few friends, several children, four dogs and three cats.
Two of the Riverview family's neighbors have offered to take in the overflow. Having 20 people and eight animals in one house is stressful, but the Welches said there was no choice.
Their floors are covered with air mattresses, pillows, blankets and suitcases stuffed with whatever one thinks to grab when a disaster is looming. ``It's a tight fit, but we wouldn't want them
to be anywhere else,'' Cathy Welch said.
The Boyles left New Orleans on Sunday morning and arrived in Riverview 26 hours later. The trip included a three-
hour traffic jam and not being allowed back onto an interstate by state troopers after they had taken an exit.
They heard conflicting reports about damage in their neighborhood outside New Orleans' levee district, Antoinette Boyle said.
``Our city may or may not be there when we get back - if we can get back,'' she said. ``It's really hard watching this on the news. You'll see some engineer talking about how all this could
have been prevented, and it's like adding salt to the wound.''
Bill Welch's parents left Diamondhead on Wednesday after the Burtchaells arrived from New Orleans. His 61-
year-old mother, Coleen Welch, climbed 10 feet down a rocky creek bank to fill garbage pails with water so they could flush the toilet.
The effort made her realize just how bad conditions were with no electricity and running water, so she told her husband: ``This is it. We gotta get out.''
The families are grateful for the reception here. A local doctor offered to see to their medical needs, which include prescriptions for some of the children, Colleen Welch said.
``The drug prescriptions are in a computer in Diamondhead, and it's gone,'' she said. Her grandson ``is wearing someone else's glasses because his went into the water.''
Four of the newly arrived children will enroll Tuesday in Trinity School for Children.
``When I find myself talking about enrolling them in school, after this, it's like, `OK, we're really not going home anytime soon,' '' Antoinette Boyle said.
Reporter Mike Wells can be reached at (813) 657-4534.