HOUSTON — A married couple and their 16-month-old son escaped the rising waters of New Orleans in a pirogue.

Two Orthodox rabbis shared their last supplies of kosher food with out-of-town Jews before evacuating the city.

A single mother of four young children saw two dead bodies float by as she moved three of her children to safety and worried about the fourth left behind with his grandfather. A young father was separated from his fiancée and 3-day-old child before boarding a bus headed out of New Orleans.

And a 28-year-old man who stayed to test his inner strength despite a mandatory evacuation order waded through hip-deep water and found a charter bus after food and hope started running low. They were among the thousands of evacuees at the Astrodome — the indoor stadium converted into

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