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Rita hampers New Orleans' plan to dry out
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-25 09:55

Hurricane Rita left floodwaters lapping at the high-water marks set by Katrina just three weeks ago, raising questions about how swiftly New Orleans can recover from its epic flooding and providing a grim reminder that the city remains in peril even as it seeks to rebuild.

Despite the setback, Mayor Ray Nagin said Saturday that he hoped to resume a plan to move residents back into neighborhoods that remained relatively dry, including the city's business district.

Federal officials said it will take two to three weeks to pump out the latest floodwaters, which began pouring in Friday through levees that were patched after the previous hurricane. On Saturday, water rose to the tops of cars in one neighborhood and seeped into homes in other sections of the city that were pumped dry days ago.

"The surge got higher than we expected in the canal," said Dan Hitchings, an engineer overseeing recovery operations for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The biggest failure was on the Industrial Canal, where a storm surge pushed by Rita's winds topped a levee that had been patched with rock and gravel. The water cascaded into the city's impoverished Ninth Ward, flooding homes to their windows.

The flow out of the canal stopped Saturday afternoon, as water levels fell and weather improved, but more rain could cause renewed flooding.
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