Hurricane Rita brings rain to New Orleans

The outer bands of rain from Hurricane Rita began falling in New Orleans today, and forecasts of between 8 and 13 centimetres of rainfall in the coming days raised fears the patched levee system could fail and flood the city all over again.

A direct hit from Hurricane Rita is still unlikely, but the category-five storm veered on a more northerly course toward a Saturday landfall in Texas that put New Orleans on the eastern edge of tropical storm warning.