Two Bermudians are trapped in New Orleans as emergency teams battle to reach survivors of Hurricane Katrina, the most destructive storm to hit the US in decades.

Amid worsening conditions, officials plan to evacuate 20,000 people from the Superdome which is without electricity and where toilets are overflowing.

Levees keeping water out of the city have been breached and emergency teams are using helicopters to drop 3,000-pound sandbags and concrete barriers into the gaps.

Eighty percent of the city is submerged, in some places 20 feet deep, and the water level is rising.

The US Army Corps of Engineers says it could take a month to clear the flood waters, and the US government?s disaster relief agency has urged evacuees not to try to get back to their homes.

Rescuers are unable to retrieve the dead and are just pushing them aside.

Two Bermudians ? 19-year-old Jamel Thomas and 17-year-old Jashun Thomas ? are caught up in the shootings, lootings and car-jackings in the anarchic flood zone.

Mother Jean Montagne said yesterday her boys were living in New Orleans with their American father and were attending school in the city.

?I am afraid for their lives,? Mrs. Montagne said yesterday. ?The grandparents got out, but they were not sure what the father and the boys would do. He said he may try to ride it out. When I tried to call them back it was too late, the phones were dead. She fears other Bermudians could be trapped in the flooding.

?I would like the Premier to advise if anyone in Bermuda needs assistance,? she pleaded. ?Will they send the army to go down and help find the Bermudians down there??

Mrs. Montagne flew out of Bermuda on her own yesterday to try to find her sons.

?I was going on vacation for a week anyway, but and I am going to try and locate them and get any information I can,? she said.

The Department of Financial Assistance is aware of the missing boys and has agreed to provide necessary travel documents for the brothers and buy tickets for them to fly back to the Island if necessary.

?The main thing is to get the public aware that there are Bermudians down there and to try and get assistance in dealing with it,? Mrs. Montagne said.?Is Government going to go down and help??

Mrs. Montagne said she is racked with worry that increases every time someone phones or sees her and asks about the boys.

?People are always stopping and saying, ?Have you found the boys?? Just by looking at me you can tell I have not found them. I look distraught,? she said. ?I have not been able to eat. I am just numb. I feel totally helpless.?

The last time Mrs. Montagne spoke to her sons was on Sunday when they were still with their family in the New Orleans suburb of Materie.

The suburb, in the heart of New Orleans, is now under 20 feet of water.

?Materie is totally covered with water but they were raised in Bermuda and can swim all day long,? she said.

Her American cousin, who is also a local sheriff, has been trying to help her locate her boys.

?They can?t even get cell phones to work there. There really is no way of contacting them,? she said. ?I know the effects of catastrophic events, but this is really bad.?

Helen Wicks of the Bermuda Red Cross said Mrs. Montagne had contacted the organisation and her specific request for help was forwarded to the American Red Cross in Washington D.C.

The US Red Cross has mobilised thousands of volunteers for its biggest-ever natural disaster effort and federal emergency teams are being dispatched.

The Bermuda Red Cross is collecting funds for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, but Ms Wicks said they have to wait for confirmation from overseas before they launch an appeal.