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New Orleans tries to plug breaches
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- The priority in New Orleans is repairing the gaping holes in the levees that separate downtown New Orleans from canals to Lake Pontchartrain, according to a chief engineer working on that project. Water pouring in from the lake has stopped, because the lake's water level is equal to that of the water level in the city, said Walter Baumy, chief of the engineering division for the New Orleans District.

The Army Corps of Engineers said it expected to begin dumping 15,000-pound sandbags as early as Wednesday evening into the largest breaches.

One stretches 300 feet at the 17th Street Canal, the other is 300 to 400 feet wide at the London Avenue Canal. In addition, two smaller breaches have occurred on the Industrial Canal, one appearing to be about 200 feet wide, Baumy said. In each case, the steel-and-concrete levees eroded and failed when water began pouring over the top. "Once the water overtopped the system, you're taking the structure to a condition that it was not designed for," he added.

Attempts to plug such holes has never been tried, acknowledged Greg Breerwood, deputy district engineer for project management for the New Orleans District. To enable water trapped inside the city to drain back into the lake, the Army Corps would have to open new breaches in the levees, he said. Once the water had lowered enough for pumps inside the city to finish the job, "those holes would then be repaired," Breerwood explained.

Once the Sewer and Water Board gets the pumps running, it will be possible to remove the water, a corps spokesman said. However, that could take weeks, he added.

More than 1,000 sandbags are likely to be needed. And officials were awaiting the arrival of four heavy-lifting Chinook helicopters to join the two already on site, Baumy said. The massive craft are being used because access to the affected areas is not available via any other means, Baumy said. About 80 percent of New Orleans is flooded with water up to 20 feet deep, and none of the city's pumps are working.

Engineers had set up their command-and-control operations in Vicksburg, Mississippi, more than 150 miles away. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco described the project Wednesday as "an engineering nightmare."
Posted by: Steve White 2005-09-01
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=128274