washingtonpost.com
New Orleans Filling With Floodwaters Due to Breached Levee
By Peter Whoriskey and William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; 12:51 PM
NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 30 -- Hurricane Katrina and its rains have passed, but this city is filling with flood waters.
The sense of relief that residents felt Monday morning when the city was not immediately inundated by a storm surge overflowing its protective levees was replaced late Monday night and Tuesday morning with dread because of a levee that was damaged by the hurricane.
Water flowing from the damaged levee near Lake Pontchartrain could have equally catastrophic effects, only unfolding more slowly.
Water levels in Lake Pontchartrain and the connecting 17th Street Canal are normally six feet higher than the surrounding city. The levees keep the waters from flowing down into this low-lying city, much of which is below sea level.
The damage to the 17th Street Canal and its levee means that the water from Lake Pontchartrain is now free to flow down to inundate hundreds of thousands of homes and other buildings here.
Once it flows in, the water will not drain from New Orleans because of the very levees that protect the city and that largely held during the hurricane. Those levees, built to keep water out, are now keeping the water in, and reports from across the city indicate that water levels are rising.
Authorities plan to use helicopters to drop 3,000-pound sandbags into the breach in the damaged levee, the Associated Press reported. The breach is said to be about 200 feet long. There were reports Tuesday that other levees may also have given way in the hours since the storm passed.
New Orleans normally uses pumps to get the water out when necessary, but the city has been without power since the hurricane struck with 140-mph winds around daybreak Monday.
It is difficult to know how many people are threatened because of the mass evacuation before Hurricane Katrina. A caller to a local radio station reported that the flood water in her New Orleans home was rising and that she couldn't swim. Boating is rapidly becoming the best way to travel here.
If the water keeps rising and cuts off power from emergency generators, the Tulane University Hospital and Clinic might have to evacuate, a spokeswoman said on CNN.
The levee damage was first noticed during an assessment flight Monday afternoon, but its extent and significance were not immediately understood. By late Monday, the rising water levels here have made its significance apparent.
The rising flood waters in the city of 485,000 people were preventing residents from returning to their homes. |
