Times-Picayune: New Orleans glimpses possible turning point

New Orleans glimpsed a possible turning point Wednesday as floodwaters that had risen harrowingly for two days reached equilibrium and began spilling back into Lake Pontchartrain through breaches in the levee system, officials said.

At midday, Maj. Gen. Dan Riley, chief of engineers for the Army Corps of Engineers, estimated the floodwaters had receded by as much as 2 feet overnight and would continue to flow out of the city at a rate of about a half-inch per hour – a process that could be slowed, if not temporarily reversed, by the next high tides.

The continuing magnitude of the flooding, with some neighborhoods buried under as much as 20 feet of water, was made clear in Riley's added estimate that it would be at least 30 days before the saucer-shaped city would be pumped out.

To accelerate the draining process, engineers were making plans to punch holes in the lakeside levee, at strategic points starting in eastern New Orleans and working west to the Jefferson Parish line. The levees along the Intracoastal Waterway would also be breached to help dry St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th Ward.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09.html#075602