''Hospitals are trying to evacuate,'' said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan, spokesman at the city emergency operations center. ''At every one of them, there are reports that as the helicopters come in people are shooting at them. There are people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters, telling them, ''You better come get my family.

Police Capt. Ernie Demmo said a National Guard military policeman was shot in the leg as the two scuffled for the MP's rifle. The man was arrested.

''These are good people. These are just scared people,'' Demmo said.

The Superdome, where some 25,000 people were being evacuated by bus to the Houston Astrodome, descended into chaos.

Huge crowds, hoping to finally escape the stifling confines of the stadium, jammed the main concourse outside the dome, spilling out over the ramp to the Hyatt hotel next door -- a seething sea of tense, unhappy, people packed shoulder-to-shoulder up to the barricades where heavily armed National Guardsmen stood.

Fights broke out. A fire erupted in a trash chute inside the dome, but a National Guard commander said it did not affect the evacuation. After a traffic jam kept buses from arriving at the Sueprdome for nearly four hours, a near riot broke out in the scramble to get on the buses that finally did show up.