NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Hurricane Rita's steady rains sent water pouring through breaches in a patched levee Friday, cascading into one of the city's lowest-lying neighborhoods in a devastating repeat of New Orleans' flooding nightmare.
"Our worst fears came true," said Maj. Barry Guidry of the Georgia National Guard.
"We have three significant breaches in the levee and the water is rising rapidly," he said. "At daybreak I found substantial breaks and they've grown larger."
Dozens of blocks in the Ninth Ward were under water as a waterfall at least 30 feet wide poured over and through a dike that had been used to patch breaks in the Industrial Canal levee. On the street that runs parallel to the canal, the water ran waist-deep and was rising fast. Guidry said water was rising about three inches a minute.
The impoverished neighborhood was one of the areas of the city hit hardest by Katrina's floodwaters and finally had been pumped dry before Hurricane Rita struck.
A spokeswoman for Mayor Ray Nagin said officials believed the neighborhood had been cleared of residents. But throughout Friday, water began rising again onto what remained — buckled homes, piles of rubble and mud-caked cars that Katrina had covered with up to 20 feet of water.
Refugees from the Lower Ninth Ward were housed at the Progressive Baptist church in Lafayette. They were watching the TV news as the canal levee was breached again, flooding their neighborhood anew.
"It's like looking at a murder," Quentrell Jefferson said. "The first time is bad. After that, you numb up."
Forecasters say 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 say the patched levees can withstand.
Another concern is the storm surge accompanying Rita, which could send water rising as much as 3 to 5 feet above high tide.
Already Friday morning, a steady 20 mph wind, with gusts to 35 mph, was blowing, along with steady rains.
Army Corps of Engineers Brig. Gen. Robert Gen. Robert Crear blamed Friday's problems on a storm surge that was higher than expected so early in Rita's assault.
"The surge is affected by the winds and we expect that to continue for several more hours," he said, adding that contractors were being brought in Friday morning to repair the new damage with rock rocks and sandbags
Federal Emergency Management spokesman Butch Kinerney said the breaks appeared to be mainly in places where sand had washed away, and that the stone holding the wall together was still intact.
FEMA was working with parish officials to pump out the water that was flowing from the levee, Kinerney said, but that main pump in the Ninth Ward was still inoperable because of Katrina damage.
"It's just not holding," St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jack Stevens said as he watched water pouring from the same levee breaks at midmorning. "The only way you'll be able to get out of her will be by boat in about five or 10 minutes."
Because of the uncertain conditions, the recovery of bodies was suspended Friday but previous discoveries pushed the death toll from Hurricane Katrina to 841 in Louisiana, and to at least 1,078 across the Gulf Coast.
Rita was headed for a Texas landfall but the massive storm threatened southwestern Louisiana as well, with hurricane-force winds of 74 mph or higher by early Saturday. Flash floods were possible as 10 to 15 inches of rain was forecast.
By midday Friday, state police said there was already low-level flooding in coastal Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes, forcing street closures.
As many as 500,000 people in southwestern Louisiana, many of them already displaced by Hurricane Katrina, were told to evacuate. And for those who refused to leave, Gov. Kathleen Blanco advised: "Perhaps they should write their Social Security numbers on their arms with indelible ink."
National Guard and medical units were put on standby. Helicopters were being positioned, and search-and-rescue boats from the state wildlife department were staged on high ground on the edge of Rita's projected path. Blanco said she also asked for 15,000 more federal troops.
A mandatory evacuation order was also in effect for New Orleans on the eastern bank of the Mississippi, and police said people in the city's Algiers section on the other side of the river would be wise to get out, too. But thousands stayed put.
"I'm sticking it out," said Florida Richardson, who sat on her front porch in Algiers, holding her grandson on her lap. "This house is 85 years old. It's seen a lot of tornadoes and a lot of hurricanes. You can't run from the power of God."
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Associated Press writers Brett Martel, Adam Nossiter and Julia Silverman contributed to this report.