Widespread Flooding From Ike Reported in Louisiana

CNN)—Louisiana—for once spared a direct hit by a Gulf Coast hurricane—still saw its share of damage Friday as areas still soaked from Hurricane Gustav dealt once again with breached levees and rising floodwater.

Widespread flooding, often caused by overtopped levees, was being reported along the entire Gulf Coast, Louisiana’s Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration said.

Hurricane Ike, a large and strong Category 2 storm, was heading toward Galveston, Texas, expected to make landfall late Friday. Because of its size, the Gulf Coast already was seeing stormy conditions Friday afternoon.

In Plaquemines Parish, hard-hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Gustav last month, conflicting reports said a levee either was breached or was overtopped by floodwater.

Parish and state officials reported a breach 50 feet wide and 5 feet deep of a levee near the town of Scarsdale, in far southeast Louisiana.

But a contractor called to work on the damage said water was merely
overtopping the levee and that the flooding was being contained in a small area.

Weather conditions did not permit helicopters to drop sand bags into the breach, which is common practice, the state emergency agency said.

Flooding, much of it in areas outside of the federal levee system, also
was being reported in at least seven more coastal parishes, including Orleans Parish. Floodgates throughout New Orleans were closed and officials reported water levels rising in Lake Pontchartrain.

In coastal Cameron Parish, on the western-most tip of the state, floodwaters stood at 6 feet already on the streets in downtown Cameron, parish emergency preparedness director Clifton Hebert told CNN Friday night.