NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Hurricane Rita's wind and rain breached a pair of New Orleans' battered levees Friday, sending water gushing into two separate neighborhoods just days after they were pumped dry. In the already-devastated Ninth Ward, water streamed through gaps at least 100 feet wide and was soon waist-deep on a nearby street. It began covering buckled homes, piles of rubble and mud-caked cars Hurricane Katrina had swamped in the impoverished neighborhood with up to 20 feet of water nearly a month ago.
Officials with the Army Corps of Engineers said other levees appeared secure, including those breached during Katrina, but there were leaks.
Water six inches deep was rushing into homes in the Gentilly neighborhood from beneath a patched breach in the London Avenue Canal, northeast of the Ninth Ward. Streams of water spouted from beneath a mound of gravel and rock engineers had dumped in a bid to stave off flooding.
