Five Bermuda Institute students and their teacher drove straight into hurricane ravaged Mississippi last month, determined to ease the suffering of those left homeless and hungry.

The relief mission was funded by the Adventist Community Services (ACS) Disaster Response division, the American Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). ACS provided the manpower for the project, calling upon Adventist communities and schools across the US ? including Bermuda?s ? while all of the food, water and supplies they handed out were provided by FEMA.

FEMA has been intensely criticised for its response in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In early September Reuters reported that polls showed Americans were deeply unsatisfied with the response from federal, state and local officials.

?Some people were angry at the government,? the students? teacher, Torrey Price, told

?The problem was, people didn?t see the physical hands of FEMA, but they supplied everything, and they would come around and do checks.?

He also said that there was a strong local and state police presence.

Mackinnon Eldridge, 16, said: ?A lot of people said to me they appreciated the military coming.?

Although the students saw no violence whilst in Lumberton, they were reminded that security had once hung by a thread ? signs outside some homes read: ?Keep out or be shot?.

The group stayed near the city of Lumberton, 98 miles north-east of New Orleans, to man a distribution centre on the site of a destroyed shopping centre that had been under 25 feet of water during Hurricane Katrina.

When the group arrived on September 25, nearly a month after Katrina had hit, those awaiting relief ?had not eaten for three or four days?, said Deshay Caines, 16The majority of people were forced to live either in their cars or in tents, even if they had previously lived in one of the region?s many million-dollar homes.

The students described a level of destruction that they had never seen before, saying that even the sidewalks had been torn apart and often only the foundations of houses were left in place.

?It?s all gone for these people,? Micrae Smith, 16, said as he compared the financial sacrifice he made to buy his plane ticket to the immense loss experienced by the people he encountered in Mississippi.

Relief workers had to contend with massive swarms of flies ? attracted to the area because of the storm ? as well as with heat exhaustion, and tensions sometimes ran high amongst the displaced residents.

?Some people were appreciative, and others were greedy,? said Deshay. ?Some were even fussy about which shampoo they wanted to receive.?

However, ?the look on one person?s face from just a bottle of water? was enough to convince Deshay and the others that they had made the right choice in making the long trip. Mackinnon even wishes he could have stayed to see the project to its end, saying: ?I have the attitude that you stay and finish something that you have started.?