New Orleans spared worst of Isaac's wrath
Hurricane cuts power, topples trees on 7th anniversary of Katrina but is far less strong
Hurricane Isaac drove water over the top of a levée on the outskirts of New Orleans yesterday, but the multibillion-dollar barriers built to protect the city itself after the 2005 Katrina disaster were not breached, officials said.
The slow-moving but powerful Category 1 hurricane was felt along the Gulf Coast, threatening to flood towns in Mississippi and Louisiana with storm surges of up to 3.7 metres and sustained winds of to 120 km/h.
"The federal levée system... is fine," New Orleans Mayor Mitchell Landrieu told local radio.
Police and National Guard units, many wielding automatic assault rifles, patrolled the virtually empty downtown quarter of the port city. Tree limbs and street signs littered the streets and power was cut intermittently throughout the city, but authorities reported no security problems.
The storm hit seven years to the day after the devastating Hurricane Katrina, but it was far weaker. Still, tens of thousands of people in low-lying parts of Louisiana and Mississippi had been told to leave.
Powerful winds knocked over and ripped down power lines, leaving 390,000 people without power, according to Entergy Louisiana, a local utility.