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Convoy of Aid Trucks Arriving at the Convention Center:
...Mayor Ray Nagin said in a statement that more than 10,000 people were evacuated from the city Thursday but that more than 50,000 survivors were still on rooftops and in shelters, in urgent need of help...
Earlier, Nagin lashed out at state and federal authorities saying they were "thinking small" in the face of the massive crisis...Thousands of people have been stranded at the Ernest Morial Convention Center with little help and surrounded by corpses, trash and human waste.
"We got here, there's no food. There's no water. There's shooting. They're killing people," evacuee Tishia Walters told CNN from inside the center. "They're robbing men in the restrooms, they're raping women trying to go to the rest room. So people have resorted to defecating on the floors. You can't walk. There's babies without Pampers, mammas without milk. It's chaos total chaos."
CNN's Chris Lawrence, who was driving out of New Orleans around 11:30 a.m. (12:30 p.m. ET), said he saw huge flatbed trucks stacked with water bottles and boxes of food heading into the city.
He also saw about 25 tour buses and as many as 12 school buses in a line heading into the city...
Overnight, police snipers were stationed on the roof of their precinct, trying to protect it from gunmen roaming through the city, CNN's Chris Lawrence reported.
One New Orleans police sergeant compared the situation to Somalia and said officers were outnumbered and outgunned by gangs in trucks.
"It's a war zone, and they're not treating it like one," he said, referring to the federal government.
The officer hitched a ride to Baton Rouge Friday morning, after working 60 hours straight in the flooded city. He has not decided whether he will return.
He broke down in tears when he described the deaths of his fellow officers, saying many had drowned doing their jobs. Other officers have turned in their badges as the situation continues to deteriorate...
"Buses and trucks carrying supplies drive to the convention center."