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ain bands from Hurricane Rita sent water pouring through breaches in a patched levee in New Orleans Friday afternoon into some of the city's lowest-lying neighborhoods, the Associated Press reported.
Dozens of blocks in the city’s Ninth Ward — recently flooded by Hurricane Katrina but since drained extensively as the levee was patched — were under water again as a 30-foot wide waterfall poured through the Industrial Canal levee, AP reported.
There were three breaches in the levee and water was rising rapidly, Maj. Barry Guidry of the Georgia National Guard told AP.
Forecasters said anywhere from 3 to 5 inches of rain could fall in New Orleans as Rita passes Friday and Saturday, dangerously close to the 6 inches of rain that Corps officials said the patched levees can withstand, AP reported.
Hurricane Rita’s eye was expected to strike several hundred miles to the west, just west of the Texas-Louisiana border late Friday or early Saturday, but the huge storm’s rain bands had already begun pelting New Orleans and other areas along the coast with heavy rain, weather reports said.
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