Pumps keeping up with New Orleans flooding

By David Alexander

WASHINGTON, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Waves from Hurricane Gustav caused some flooding over the tops of levees in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, hard-hit during Hurricane Katrina three years ago, but city pumps were clearing the floodwaters, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said on Monday.

Maj. Gen. Don Riley, deputy commander of the engineers, said the hardest-hit areas were farther south in Louisiana near where Gustav came ashore earlier on Monday. Officials were concerned about heavier flooding in those regions and the possibility of erosion of levees and flood barriers, he said.

A full assessment of damage in the region was not expected to begin until Tuesday, Riley said in a briefing on hurricane damage by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"We're very very concerned about flooding in southern Louisiana and overtopping of any (flood barrier) systems down there," Riley said. He added that the ones "we think are in the greatest danger are in south Lafourche Parish."

He said there were significant storm surges further east in Mississippi as well, with the town of Waveland experiencing some flooding of homes, as happened during Hurricane Katrina.

Gustav hit shore near Cocodrie, Louisiana, about 70 miles (115 km) southwest of New Orleans, as a Category 2 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, one step below Katrina's strength when it made landfall.

The storm surge that reached up into New Orleans came to within a foot (30 cm) of the top of some levees, resulting in waves washing over into the interior of the city, Riley said.

"On the western side of Upper 9th Ward on the western side of the Inner Harbor Canal, you may have seen some overwash and flooding over the top of that, interior flooding which the city's pumps will keep up with," Riley said.

He confirmed reports that vessels had come unmoored in the Inner Harbor, but added "right now they are not endangering any flood walls or levees."

He said although waves washing over the tops of the levees in New Orleans and high water pressing the walls raised the potential for problems, officials were "confident in the resilience" of the levees rebuilt after Katrina.

"There's no question they have a safer system now than they did during Katrina," one official said of the levee system.

Asked how much the storm would set back the Corps of Engineers' project to restore and fortify the levees after Katrina, Riley said the New Orleans project was only about 25 percent finished and was due to be completed by 2011.

"What you saw in the Inner Harbor, those levees are fairly low, about 12 feet (3.7 metres)," he said. "We will inflate surge barriers in the future so that it won't even reach those levees and flood walls in the Inner Harbor. There's much work to do."

Up to 50,000 National Guards troops have been authorized by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to help following the hurricane, Maj. Bill Etter of the National Guard said.

"Right now as we talk we have just over 14,000 citizen soldiers and citizen airmen responding to the Gulf coast," he said, adding that number could be increased as needs arose.

Etter said the guard had evacuated 17,000 people from the region ahead of the storm. He said they had flown 65 air medical evacuation missions before the hurricane struck and had 87 helicopters ready to move into the area as soon as it subsided.

The guard was beginning 24-hour security patrols following the storm, he added.