Exhausted and panicky, the women clutched medical records and bags of food and water. They wanted to be with their boyfriends, husbands or parents, but relatives were not allowed to stay.

For these women, Katrina’s timing could not have been more cruel: they were due to go into labour at any moment.

And so the ten expectant mothers found themselves huddled together in a corridor at the hospital, where they had been sent by doctors who thought that it was safe.

But nowhere was safe.

“The lights went out at 5am,” Linda Pham, 27, remembered. “There was no electricity, no water, just this howling wind. I prayed to God that none of us would go into labour. It was crazy: ten pregnant woman in the hallway, needing to pee every five minutes. And the toilet didn’t work.”

Ms Pham’s prayer was answered: it was not until after the winds died down that the women started to be wheeled into the delivery room.

One by one, over the next seven days, each young mother delivered a baby in defiance of the tragedy surrounding them. Relatives who could be contacted did their best to visit.

At 9.37am on Monday, almost exactly seven days after the ordeal began, the last of the ten “hurricane babies” was born. The Times was there to celebrate.

“She is a miracle,” Ms Pham said, cradling Tuyen Hailey Pham (Tuyen meaning Angel in Vietnamese) in her arms.

Tuyen, unaware of the devastation around her, peered out of a pink and grey woolly hat. She is a healthy 6lb 1oz.

For now, the birth of Tuyen allows her mother to forget about the new house in the nearby town of D’Iberville that she bought with her fiancé six months ago for $107,000 (£58,000). It has been made uninhabitable by 9ft of water from the Back Bay of Biloxi. “We had the nursery room all set up for the baby,” Ms Pham said. “We had her clothes, the dresser — we put it all together a few days ago.”

Ms Pham’s catering job at the casino where she met her fiancé, Adam Field, 26, is also in doubt.

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