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NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana-Hurricane Gustav swirled violently ashore Monday, turning lights out across the Gulf Coast and sending water over the tops of New Orleans' levees, officials said.In Biloxi, Mississippi, iReporter Kevin Wise, who lives two blocks from the beach, said Gustav had pushed the Gulf waters into the highway, about 100 yards from the normal shoreline."On the beach, it was blowing hard enough that you had to squat down to take a picture, it could pretty much throw you around," he told CNN.Wise said he and his wife ignored mandatory evacuation orders for his area.At 11 a.m. CT, the center of Hurricane Gustav, a Category 2 storm with winds of 110 mph (177 kph), was about 70 miles (113 kilometers) south of New Orleans. Hurricane-force winds were extending 70 miles from the center.Winds were sending whitecaps over levees in New Orleans, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported no major problems. There were reports of water going over the Industrial Canal levee near a railroad bridge, said Chris Macaluso, a spokesman for the Louisiana Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration. The Port of New Orleans will raise the bridge to ease pressure on the system, he said.The Industrial Canal levee failed during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, devastating the Lower Ninth Ward and neighboring St. Bernard ParishThe Federal Emergency Management Agency said two Navy boats that were being scrapped at a facility on the canal broke away from their moorings and were driven against the pilings of a nearby bridge.Brandon Touchard, emergency coordinator of St. Charles Parish, said that five barges had also come loose there.Gustav made landfall Monday morning near the coastal town of Cocodrie, Louisiana, about 80 miles southwest of New Orleans.As of 10 a.m. CT, the storm was moving northwest at 15 mph, and "the center of Gustav will track along the south-central Louisiana coast this afternoon, then move into western Louisiana tonight and eastern Texas on Tuesday," the National Weather Service said Monday. The Weather Service issued tornado warnings for parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama, and a tornado was spotted near the Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Mississippi, near the Louisiana border.Hancock County is where Katrina made its final landfall three years ago.From just outside New Orleans, in Harahan, Louisiana, Megan Arseneaux, 19, said in an e-mail that phone service was spotty at her East Bank home, two blocks from the Mississippi River."My backyard is full of leaves and debris. The wind was very intense when I woke up around 6 a.m.," she said. "As I type this, the wind has actually picked up. The rain is very harsh too."Arseneaux said she and her mother stayed in Jefferson Parish because they could not decide whether to flee Gustav, given that the highways were clogged with evacuees this weekend. They decided to stay at their home, which has boards on the front windows and sandbags along the front door, she said.There are concerns that if Gustav moves up the Mississippi River's estuaries, some levees may not hold, resulting in severe flooding. Although many levees have been repaired and heightened since Katrina struck in 2005, all of the work won't be completed until 2011, officials said.The U.S. Geological Survey said Gustav has already caused an almost 9-foot storm surge in Pointe a La Hache, Louisiana, about 40 miles southeast of New Orleans. Another 1 to 3 feet of surge could occur, the USGS said.To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
