Reply #6: A Week After Storm, Levee Break Is Fixed

[DoYouEverWonder]

NEW ORLEANS - A week after Hurricane Katrina, engineers plugged the levee break that swamped much of the city and floodwaters began to recede, but along with the good news came the mayor's direst prediction yet: As many as 10,000 dead.

Sheets of metal and repeated helicopter drops of 3,000-pound sandbags along the 17th Street canal leading to Lake Pontchartrain succeeded Monday in plugging a 200-foot-wide gap, and water was being pumped from the canal back into the lake. State officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers say once the canal level is drawn down two feet, Pumping Station 6 can begin pumping water out of the bowl-shaped city.

Some parts of the city already showed slipping floodwaters as the repair neared completion, with the low-lying Ninth Ward dropping more than a foot. In downtown New Orleans, some streets were merely wet rather than swamped.

"We're starting to make the kind of progress that I kind of expected earlier," New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said of the work on the break, which opened at the height of the hurricane and flooded 80 percent of the city up to 20 feet deep.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/hurricane_katrina

The is great news for New Orleans. Plus the pumps are start to come on line. At least now they can get the water out of there. Bravo Nagin and Blanco for fighting BushCo and making this happen.