GREENVILLE -- After two days of waiting, the Hurricane Katrina evacuee shelter at the Palmetto Expo Center has its first residents.

A plane carrying 108 people from New Orleans touched down at the Greenville-Spartanburg airport just before 8 p.m. Wednesday, where they boarded buses to the Expo Center.

Many Upstate residents were on hand to welcome the evacuees.

"Just the word welcome means so much to them," said Claudette Neeley. "They don't have anything ... We really do welcome them. We love them."

"It could have just as well been us. You don't never know. We need each other," Terri Cooper said.

New Orleans evacuees Betty Doyle and her husband were rescued by helicopter when their house disappeared under water.

"We walked over dead people," Doyle said. "We had to sit on a bridge for three days before we got a ride to where we were going."

Once they arrived, they were given a shower and registered into the shelter.

The Expo Center can hold as many as 1,200 people. Volunteers and workers have been setting up cots and inflatable beds at the shelter for the past two days. The Salvation Army is prepared to feed the evacuees.

Greenville City Manager Jim Bourey said the city is expecting another planeload of evacuees Thursday evening.