corrente

Looks like New Orleans didn't dodge the bullet after all...

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.

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.

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.
(via WaPo)

Not good news.