Hotel guests had already managed to chase one group of looters from the building, he said. They had then taken turns patrolling the hotel's corridors with a torch.
Guests and staff broke into vending machines to get crisps and other food, and gathered together all the drinkable water in order to survive the next few days, said Mr Scott.
But he accused the authorities of failing to provide any help to the beleaguered victims.
"If the American authorities had had their act together at that point, they could have had the vast majority of people out of New Orleans at that time to safer ground," he said..
Asked what assistance was offered to people stranded in the hotel, he replied: "Nothing. The only information we got from anybody in authority was if a policeman walked past and we shouted to them out of the windows.
"The only information we ever got off them was negative: Don't go here, don't go there. There was no 'Are you OK? Are you safe? Have you got water?'.
"I couldn't describe how bad the authorities were - just little things like taking photographs of us, as we are standing on the roof waving for help, for their own personal photo albums, little snapshot photographs.
"At one point, there were a load of girls on the roof of the lobby of the hotel saying 'Can you help us?' and the policemen said 'Show us what you've got' and made signs for them to lift their T-shirts.
"When they said no, they said 'fine' and motored off down the road in their motorboat."
The Scotts witnessed people, including hotel staff and guests, returning from looting sprees with mobile phones, radios and clothes which they attempted to sell to the stranded guests.
But the most terrifying aspect of their ordeal was the shooting which broke out at night, when there were no police patrolling.
Mr Scott said police appeared to be operating only between 9am and 5pm, after which the hotel guests had to defend themselves.
"You would hear shots ringing out during the night and that was one of the most worrying things, because we had no security. We patrolled the halls and checked the doors throughout the night in the hotel, but if someone had wanted to come in, there wasn't much we could have done about it."
News RSS Feed