Rita’s rains breach New Orleans levees

Hurricane Rita’s wind and rain breached two of New Orleans’ battered levees today and sent water gushing into already-devastated neighbourhoods just days after they had been pumped dry.

In the impoverished Ninth Ward, water streamed through gaps at least 100ft wide in a levee and was soon waist-deep on a nearby street.

It began covering buckled homes, piles of rubble and mud-caked cars that Katrina had swamped with up to 20ft of water nearly a month ago.

The Army Corps of Engineers said other levees in the city appeared secure, but there were leaks.

South of the University of New Orleans, two separate streams of water gushed from beneath the patched London Avenue Canal, and water 6-8 inches deep was soon rushing into homes in the surrounding Gentilly neighbourhood.

“Our worst fears came true,” said Major Barry Guidry, a National Guardsman on duty at the broken levee in the Ninth Ward, a community where the damage was already so severe few structures were expected to survive.

Refugees from the misery-stricken neighbourhood learned of the crisis with despair.

“It’s like looking at a murder,” Quentrell Jefferson said as he watched the news at a church in Lafayette, 125 miles west of New Orleans. “The first time is bad. After that, you numb up.”

The water poured over and through sandbags, gravel and soil that had been used to temporarily patch the levee breaks, said Dan Hitchings, a spokesman with the Corps of Engineers. The Corps could not immediately make repairs, but pumps would be turned on to help remove the water, he said.

Colonel Richard Wagenaar, Corps of Engineers district chief in New Orleans, said the overtopping of the levees would set back repairs at least three weeks. He said, nevertheless, that June is still the target for getting the levees back to pre-Katrina levels.

The breaches came as Rita began lashing the Gulf Coast with rain and wind and up to 500,000 people in south western Louisiana headed north.

Some residents who had fought gridlock to get out of Houston and headed east into Louisiana found they had to keep going to stay out of the path of the storm.

In the coastal parishes, nearly every town was deserted by this afternoon. Some roads were shut down by high water, but the highways were already empty, said Police Colonel Henry Whitehorn.

Ships were barred from entering the Port of Lake Charles, the US’s 12th largest seaport.

ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Citgo, Shell and Valero shut down operations and evacuated workers in the area. The National Guard moved 4,000 troops to Lafayette to be prepared to move in after the storm.

Rita is expected to come ashore early tomorrow somewhere near the Texas-Louisiana line. There were fears it would stall, dumping as much as 25in of rain.

Forecasters said the hurricane could bring 3-5in of rain to New Orleans - dangerously close to the 6in Army engineers say could overwhelm the patched levees. Another fear was that a strong storm surge would push water through the walls.

By mid-afternoon, advance squalls were sweeping inland, flattening sugar cane fields, knocking over trees and lashing the low-lying landscape near New Iberia, about 110 miles west of New Orleans.

Authorities in New Orleans called off the search for bodies, and Katrina’s death toll across the Gulf Coast stood at 1,078, including 841 in Louisiana.

A mandatory evacuation order was in effect for the part of New Orleans on the east bank of the Mississippi, including the Ninth Ward. A spokeswoman for Mayor Ray Nagin said officials believed the neighbourhood had been cleared of residents.

Just to the east, in St Bernard Parish – heavily flooded by Katrina – water from a new breach was threatening from one side and a storm surge along a bayou was lapping at the top of a levee on the other.

Mark Madary, a St Bernard Parish councillor, said houses that were under 12ft of water after Katrina would probably get an additional 3ft. He accused the Army Corps of Engineers of not rebuilding the levee properly.

“Everybody’s home’s been crushed, and let’s hope their dreams aren’t,” he said.