A DAY IN THEIR LIVES PARENTS WATCH OVER KIDS IN WAKE OF TRAUMA.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

DREAM CENTER, Calif. - Nightfall was still an hour away, but 8-year-old Clifton Hill was already looking for his mama.

Gone was the bravado of daylight, when the smiling, fast-talking youngster skated through the parking lot of the Dream Center, showing off all the new toys and clothes the people of Los Angeles had given him.

Now, night was coming, the in-line skates were off, and Clifton wanted his mama.

They all did, these kids from the South who have seen things children should never have to see. And for them, Hurricane Katrina was at her ugliest in the dark.

``Wherever you move, they want to move with you at night,'' Terrell Hill says, holding his son's hand. ``So you keep them close because nighttime is the toughest time.''

It was night when gunshots rang out and the Hill family fled the New Orleans convention center, crossing a river of waist-high water in the moonlight to the safety of a nearby bridge.

Ashley Hill carried year-old daughter Terryelle in one arm, holding Clifton close with the other, while 10-year-old daughter Brittany held her brother's hand.

The Hills didn't have enough hands to cover their children's eyes.

``I was really scared, especially when I saw a dead body floating by,'' Clifton says.

Ashley winces at her son's words. She knows he saw a lot; she just doesn't know how much. He hasn't said, and she hasn't asked. Someday, but not now.

Still, she wonders whether he saw the old woman stuck with duct tape to a street pole. Someone must have lifted her out of the water to give her what passed for - in a time of chaos - a decent burial.

She wonders whether, when the family stood on the bridge looking at the rising water, her son saw the child about his own age floating by.

``That was a lot for a grown-up to deal with, let alone a child,'' Ashley says. ``I'm hoping what my babies saw won't have a lasting effect on them, but nobody knows.''

It was also a lot to deal with, what the family had to do to survive. She knows it wasn't right, what her brothers did to get them off that bridge and to safety. But who's to say what's right and wrong when your family is in the middle of a life-and-death situation.

``My brothers stole a water truck and got us out of there,'' she says. ``We gave people bottled water for two days all the way to Baton Rouge.''

And now they are here with almost 200 other Katrina survivors - guests of the Dream Center, a Christian ministry housed in the old Queen of Angels Hospital that was closed for safety reasons after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.

But it's not so unsafe that it can't provide these families a temporary haven, and an incredible welcome by the people of Los Angeles that has left them stunned and grateful.

It is 5 p.m. Thursday - dinnertime. But no one is standing in the cafeteria line. Instead, they're all up on the fourth floor eating soul food, courtesy of Chef Marilyn's Soul Food Express on Crenshaw Boulevard.

Southern fried chicken, red beans and rice, turnip greens and corn bread - as close to New Orleans home cooking as they've gotten in a while.

Another whirlwind day is winding down at the center. Celebrities including Magic Johnson and most of the media are gone. Waterloo Street is nearly empty after a day of cars double- and triple-parked as people dropped off hundreds of bags of donated items.

More than a few people parked and walked inside to drop off money. The biggest check, so far, has been $10,000 from a woman who wanted to remain anonymous.

For now, people who want to volunteer are being asked to come back in a week or two, when the media attention dies down and they'll need the extra help, particularly from people with specialized skills.

Out on Waterloo Street, Kori Felchtner from Orange County was done with her specialty for the day and was busy loading up her VW Beetle.

``I've been giving massages since 9 a.m.,'' the masseuse said. ``After what these people have been through, they deserve a little pampering.''

What many Katrina survivors are getting in Los Angeles is a lot more than that.

A little before 6 p.m., Laurie Blunk from Rancho Cucamonga finally found Terry Fortia.

Blunk was actually looking for Fortia's wife, Nikel, who had been on the TV news with her seven children, including twin babies. But Nikel, her sister and older daughters were out getting a makeover, courtesy of a local beauty salon.

``I have six children of my own, including twins, and I don't need this anymore,'' Blunk told a stunned Fortia as she handed him the keys and pink slip to a 1999 Dodge Caravan with 60,000 miles on it.

``You don't know the impact this is going to have on our lives,'' said Fortia, who worked as a chef at a yacht club in New Orleans before Katrina hit. ``I never had no one give me something like this before. God bless you.''

They didn't hug - these two people living in different worlds - but you could tell by the looks on their faces they wanted to. They just didn't know how.

So they shook hands and Blunk got in her dad's car with her own twins to drive home, leaving Fortia standing there with his twin babies waving goodbye.

This night was going to be a good night for a change - when he could talk to his kids about the kindness of a woman they didn't even know.

``At night, our children draw close and want to talk more,'' Fortia says. ``All the celebrities and the media are gone and they want to know, 'Daddy, what are we going to do now?'

``I can't answer that, I tell them, but this van is a start to something good. We can't go home for a long time. I know that. What the storm didn't take, the looters did.''

By 7 p.m., the Dream Center parking lot is nearly empty. The staff and some of their New Orleans guests have been loaded onto buses to go to nearby Angelus Temple to join in song and thank God for bringing them together.

By 8:30 p.m., everyone is back at the Dream Center, preparing to welcome 60 survivors from Baton Rouge. When the bus pulls in shortly before 10 p.m., more than 200 people have formed two lines clapping and cheering.

Big, boiling pots of food brought by members of local Latino churches are waiting in case the travelers are hungry. So are piles of new clothes, toiletries, and a warm bed at the old Queen of Angels, all donated by the people of Los Angeles.

An elderly woman, Ethel Smith, is helped off the bus first. A young girl, Cardinel Smith, bursts from the waiting crowd.

``My grandbaby,'' Ethel says, crying as her granddaughter wraps her arms around her.

Violetta Thompson, mother of Nikel Fortia, is behind her, searching the crowd for her own daughter and grandchildren. She was stubborn to the end, Violetta says, refusing to leave New Orleans a week ago with her family until everything was lost.

``Mama,'' Nikel yells, running through the crowd with her children to hug and kiss the last member of the family who was still missing.

By 11 p.m., the newest guests are in their rooms at the Dream Center, getting some much-needed sleep.

On the fourth floor, in a room crowded with four bunk beds, Ashley Hill is tucking her son, Clifton, into the bunk below hers and giving him a good-night kiss.

The next day was going to be busy, and they all needed their sleep. Ashley had an appointment with a case worker to see about getting financial aid to move her family into a real home.

And their father was going to be busy at a job fair, trying to line up employment.

Clifton and Brittany would spend the day playing with the other kids, watched over by volunteers at the center, their mama said.

But she'd be home by dark. Promise.

Dennis McCarthy, [phone]

dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) Ashley Hill holds daughter Terryelle, 1, at their new residence at the Dream Center in Los Angeles as daughter Brittany, 10, gazes out the window; below, son Clifton, 8, skates outside his new home, safe from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

(3 -- 4) Above, Sylvia Williamson, a volunteer from Arizona, sorts donations at the Dream Center; at left, hurricane survivors Renee Hahn, 22, and James Jackson, 26, fill out applications at a Dream Center job fair.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer