By BRETT MARTEL
AP Sports Writer
NEW ORLEANS – If desperation has a smell, it permeated the Louisiana Superdome after Hurricane Katrina – rancid and overpowering as thousands sweltered in a cauldron of human misery.
The stench was so wretched that it still haunts the people preparing the dome for one of its biggest games – the New Orleans Saints’ first home conference championship game on Sunday against Minnesota, with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line.
“I would gag, man. It would just gag you – a smell you’ll never forget,” said Doug Thornton, who has run the Superdome since the late 1990s. “Perspiration, human feces, urine, mold, wet ceiling tiles, wet carpet.”