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Lafitte: 6-7 footstorm surgeforced residentsto rooftops

GulfportSlidell

Lake Pontchartrain:Swelled 6 feet above normal

Hurricane Rita slammedashore Saturday at 2:30a.m. near Port Arthur,Texas as a Category 3.A look at the swath ofdestruction:

New Orleans: Lower 9thWard reflooded at leveebreaches caused by Katrinajust three weeks prior toRita’s brush. Two feet ofwater in Lakeview andGentilly due to pumps beingshut down.

Lafayette:Churchflooded

Lake Charles:Reports of lakeexpanding rapidlyinto the city

Jasper County, Tex.:House with sevenpeople inside floatedoff its foundation

Beaumont:hotel windowsblown out,lobby flooded

Galveston: Fire erupted inhistoric Strand district

Guf of Mexico

HURRICANE FORCE WINDS TROPICAL STORM WINDS

Tornadoes: Countless warningsissued in southern Louisiana

Power outages: Over900,00 without powerin Texas; 500,000-700,000 in Louisiana

Houston:Spared directhit; some firesreported

Port Arthur:Extent of damageto petroleumrefineries unknown Port Fourchon: Pregnant

woman and 4-year-oldson rescued by helicopter

Evacuees: 3 million people along 500-mile stretch of Texas and Louisiana

Calcasieu River:I-10 bridge hit bybarge; closedwhile beinginspected fordamage

STAFF MAP BY DAN SWENSON

Source: Staff research20 miles

$1.50 169th year No. 248 HURRICANE EDITION

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CONTACTING THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

SUNDAY GREEN WAVE HANDILY DEFEATS SMU, 31-10 SPORTS

DAY 27 Katrina death toll in Louisiana: 841 New federal program to put cash in evacuees’ pockets, A-2 Rescuers find looted items by the truckload, A-8 FULLCOVERAGE AT NOLA.COM

STAFF PHOTO BY ALEX BRANDON

NEW ORLEANS: Police Superintendent Eddie Compass surveys the damage Saturday in the Lower 9th Ward, which includes a submerged school bus. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said Lower 9th Ward flooding rose to as high as 12 feet.

STAFF PHOTO BY DAVID GRUNFELD

NEW IBERIA: Jace Marceaux, front, Juan Migues,center, and Toby Provost collect items includinghunting bows, guns and paper towels from Migues’mother’s flooded house on Avery Island Road.

SWAMPEDFLOODWATERS SET BACK 9TH WARD, ST. BERNARD RECOVERY

TEXAS, SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA DRENCHED, BUT DAMAGE FAR LESS THAN EXPECTED

By Jeff DuncanStaff writer

Flood waters from HurricaneRita continued to pour into NewOrleans’ 9th Ward on Saturday,overwhelming the beleagueredArmy Corps of Engineers andthreatening to inundate St.Bernard Parish while delayingrecovery efforts in the alreadycrippled city.

New levee breaches alsoswamped parts of Myrtle Grovein south Plaquemines Parishand Jean Lafitte in south Jef-ferson Parish, areas that weregenerally dry from Katrina.

In add i t ion to the cana lbreaches, Rita’s 5-foot stormsurge and heavy rains floodedparts of Orleans and St. Tam-many parishes. Rising water inLake Pontchartrain also floodedlow-lying parts of St. TammanyParish, from Madisonville toEden Isles.

Areas of Lakeview and Gen-tilly were under 1 to 2 feet ofwater, mainly because the pumpstations that normally drain theareas are temporarily shutdown to lighten the load on theCorps’ makeshift dams on the17th Street and London Avenuecanals. Both dams held strongagainst the storm surge andwere not in danger of flooding,officials said.

“We are working as hard andas fast as we can,” said Lt. Col.Richard Waggenaar, the NewOrleans district commander forthe Army Corps of Engineers.“There’s only so much we cando against the forces of MotherNature. At some point, it just

See NEW ORLEANS, A-26

In Lafitte, Rita does what Katrina couldn’t

By Paul Purpuraand Kate Moran

Staff writers

After ignoring a mandatorycall to evacuate, hundreds ofLafitte residents were pluckedfrom their homes by boat andhelicopter Saturday after Hur-ricane Rita’s winds pushed thewaters of Bayou Barataria intothe low-lying community.

“We misjudged it,’’ said Paul

Bailey, who fled his home withcousin George Bailey in a 16-foot flatboat.

“It’s rising tremendously,’’George Bailey added.

L a f i t t e a n d t h e H a r v e yCanal, the so-called Achilles’heel of the West Bank, kept Jef-ferson Parish officials on edgethroughout the day as crewsr u s h e d t o t h e i n d u s t r i a l

See LAFITTE, A-28

Battered border areacautiously exhales

By Jan Moller and Steve Ritea

Staff writers

Hurricane Rita slammedashore early Saturday along theTexas-Louisiana border, dump-ing several feet of water into thesouthwest corner of the stateand driving some residents totheir rooftops to await rescue,although officials said wide-spread evacuations undoubtedly

saved many lives.“We don’t anticipate a large

number of deaths” in Louisianafrom Rita, said Col. Jeff Smith,deputy director of the state Of-fice of Homeland Security andEmergency Preparedness.“Most people chose to heed thegovernor’s call to evacuate.”

Aides to Gov. Kathleen Blancocautioned that it was difficult to

See RITA, A-25

THUNDERSTORMS