DES MOINES (AP) -=- Annette and Ray Carter of Cedar Rapids fully intended to get out of New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina hit - until they found out it might cost them $1,000 for a cab to the airport.

Now they're stuck, with no air conditioning, on the steamy seventh floor of a 29-story hotel near the flooded French Quarter.

"You can't get any vehicles to come into the city and we can't get any out," said Ray Carter, a former Cedar Rapids police officer.

The Carters said they were stunned by the damage from the hurricane, which began tearing into the city about 5 a.m. Monday.

"We live in Iowa. We've lived through tornadoes and snowstorms," said Annette Carter, a former nurse. "This is a compounded tornado with winds and rains and nothing I have ever seen before."

Added Ray Carter, "I don't know that I can explain it. It was worse than any tornado. You had all this wind and rain."

The Carters, both 47, arrived in New Orleans on Aug. 24 for an emergency medical service conference. They had planned to leave Sunday, but roads were clogged by people evacuating the city and some cab drivers were demanding $1,000 for a trip to the airport, they said.

When the storm hit, they found shelter in a hotel conference room. Now, because of a curfew, they must be at their hotel by 6 p.m. or face arrest. They are required to be in their dark, stuffy room by 9 p.m.

"It's really hot. It's just sticky," Annette Carter said.

The hotel, the Hilton New Orleans Riverside, is housing about 3,000 people. It lacks running water, so hotel workers were providing bottled water and using propane stoves to heat chicken and mashed potatoes from a canceled banquet.

The Carters walked to the French Quarter on Tuesday to check on the damage. Ray Carter described the scene as a "mini war zone."

"I've been a police officer for 20 years and I have never seen anything like this," he said.

The looting also has been disturbing, he said.

"We saw people trying to run off with TVs and lots of other stuff," he said. "It's really sad."