NEW ORLEANS — The Army Corps of Engineers raced to patch New Orleans' fractured levee system today and residents were forced to decide yet again whether to stay or go as a new hurricane threatened to flood the city anew.
"First it was come back, then it was go," said Karen Torre, who returned to her Uptown home today to haul away debris and clean rotted food from her refrigerator before leaving again. "We're just trying to do what they tell us and get a few things done in between."
The new threat was Hurricane Rita, which strengthened into a 100-mph Category 2 storm as it barreled past the Florida Keys into the Gulf of Mexico. The storm was projected to cross the gulf and hit Texas by the end of the week, but engineers warned that even a glancing blow to New Orleans and as little as three inches of rain could swamp the city's levees as early as Thursday.
[...]Government engineers and private contractors also worked furiously across New Orleans to repair the damage to the system of pumps, concrete floodwalls, earthen berms and canals that protect the below-sea-level city.
[...]At the Cajun Dome in Lafayette, emergency officials arranged to take the 1,000 refugees from the New Orleans area out on buses if Rita tracks north.
Houston Chronicle
