Homes are flooded as Hurricane Isaac hits Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2012, in Braithwaite, La. As Isaac made landfall, it was expected to dump as much as 20 inches of rain in several parts of Louisiana.GULFPORT, Miss. – Hurricane Isaac sidestepped New Orleans on Wednesday, sending the worst of its howling wind and heavy rain into a cluster of rural fishing villages that had few defenses against the slow-moving storm that could bring days of unending rain.
Isaac arrived exactly seven years after Hurricane Katrina and passed slightly to the west of New Orleans, where the city’s fortified levee system easily handled the assault.
The city’s biggest problems seemed to be downed power lines, scattered tree limbs and minor flooding. Just one person was reported killed, compared with 1,800 deaths from Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi. And police reported few problems with looting. Mayor Mitch Landrieu ordered a dusk-to-dawn curfew just to be sure.
But in Plaquemines Parish, a sparsely populated area south of the city that is outside the federal levee system, dozens of people were stranded in flooded coastal areas and had to be rescued. The storm pushed water over an 18-mile levee and put so much pressure on it that authorities planned to intentionally puncture the floodwall to relieve the strain.
“I’m getting text messages from all over asking for help,” said Joshua Brockhaus, an electrician who was rescuing neighbors in his boat. “I’m dropping my dogs off, and I’m going back out there.”