As Gustav winds down, New Orleans eyes damage
By Matthew Bigg and
Tim Gaynor
Tue Sep 2, 2008
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - A still-largely deserted New Orleans on Tuesday prepared to take stock of damage from Hurricane Gustav after rebuilt levees appeared to hold off a repeat of the flooding caused by Katrina three years earlier.
Gustav roared through the heart of the U.S. Gulf oil patch but oil and natural gas prices plunged when Gustav weakened before landfall and spared key Gulf oil installations, easing fears of serious supply disruptions.
As the hurricane's winds slowed, it also stayed on a westerly track, missing New Orleans in a twist that helped keep it from becoming the monster storm feared just days earlier.
By early Tuesday, Gustav had weakened to become a tropical depression as it dumped rain over western Louisiana, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
But the storm surge kicked up by Gustav tested a levee system still being rebuilt after collapsing during Katrina. A tense vigil followed into Monday night for any sign of the kind of deluge of three years ago when 80 percent of New Orleans flooded and thousands were stranded.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers closed massive new floodgates built after Katrina and intended to keep Lake Pontchartrain waters from surging back toward the south into the city and over the banks of two canals.
Although water flowed over flood walls and spurted through cracks, a flood barrier system which officials had warned left New Orleans vulnerable appeared to hold up.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said residents could begin to return to the city later this week. With the city still under curfew, officials will assess hurricane damage on Tuesday and begin allowing businesses to return as soon as Wednesday.
"Reentry is only days away and not weeks away," Nagin said.
