'No contact from my big brother'

Tom and Mike (right) met up on a holiday in Florida two years ago

A water surge reportedly up to 20ft high ravaged the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, north of New Orleans, during last week's hurricane.

Tom Noone, 48, from Abingdon in Oxfordshire, knows just about every detail about what happened there when Katrina swept through.

Except what happened to his brother Mike.

Mike, 51, has lived in the US for nearly 30 years, and has a house on the north shore of the lake.

He left his family in the UK as a young engineer, to pursue his ambition to work on the Nasa space shuttle programme.

Tom - who last heard from his brother by email three weeks ago - has spent the last week trawling the internet, posting messages, listening to every news report possible, trying to ring his brother's mobile and contacting anyone he thinks can help.

But he has heard nothing.

We are very close - I've done everything I can to try to find him Tom Noone

He is also desperate for news of Mike's ex-wife Virginia, and their three children Patrick, 24, Ryan, 19, and Marion, 16, who also live in the area and often spend time at their dad's place.

"When the hurricane came it drove the sea into the lake, and there was a huge water surge. It caused a huge amount of devastation.

"If he has evacuated he'll be wondering where the children are. Or maybe he went looking for them when the hurricane hit. I've thought of every possibility."

When Hurricane Ivan threatened last year his brother feared the "big one" was on its way, Tom said. One of the places he'd planned to evacuate to, if his area was affected, was Houston.

The lake area, just north of New Orleans, was devastated

"But if he had gone there this time he would have access to the internet and phones. Houston is a major city, there's no way he could not have got in touch.

"A friend of his got out of the area and she has picked up messages."

He said although there was plenty of warning he felt people in the region could be complacent about hurricanes, although he believes this is not in his brother's nature.

Tom's research even led him to a satellite imaging website that provided such detailed aerial pictures he could see his brother's house and boat, still looking reasonably intact.

But he said it was not possible to tell what the extent of the flooding had been.

The brothers last met up in Florida, when Tom and his partner took her children to Disneyland.

"We are very close. We normally talk through his work email. I've done everything I can to try to find him.

"It's an obsession. He's my big brother. I have to know."