NEW ORLEANS — Isaac hovered over Louisiana for a third day Thursday, shedding more than a foot of additional rain that forced authorities to hurriedly evacuate areas ahead of the storm and rescue hundreds of people who could not escape as the rapidly rising waters swallowed entire neighborhoods.
The expansive spiral weather system weakened to a tropical depression as it crawled inland, but it caught many places off guard by following a meandering, unpredictable path. The storm’s slow movement meant that Isaac practically parked over low-lying towns and threw off great sheets of water for hours.
“I was blindsided. Nobody expected this,” said Richard Musatchia, who fled his water-filled home in LaPlace, northwest of New Orleans.
Inside the fortified levees that protected New Orleans, bursts of sunshine streamed through the thick clouds, and life began to return to normal. But beyond the city, people got their first good look at Isaac’s damage: Hundreds of homes were underwater. Half the state was without power. Thousands were staying at shelters.
Even more rain was expected in Louisiana before the storm finally drifted into Arkansas and Missouri.
Isaac dumped as much as 16 inches in some areas, and about 500 people had to be rescued by boat or high-water vehicles. At least two deaths were reported.
Five feet of water poured into Musatchia’s home before a neighbor passed by with a boat and evacuated him and his 6-year-old boxer, Renny.
Other evacuees were picked up by National Guard vehicles, school buses and pickups.
Daphine and David Newman fled their newly decorated home with two trash bags of clothing. They have lived in their subdivision since 1992 and never had water in their home from previous storms, not even Hurricane Katrina.
The comparison was common since Isaac hit on the seventh anniversary of the devastating 2005 storm, though the differences were stark.
Katrina was more powerful, coming ashore as a Category 3 storm. Isaac was a Category 1 at its peak. Katrina barreled into the state and quickly moved through. Isaac crept across the landscape at less than 10 mph and wobbled constantly.
David Newman was frustrated that the government spent billions of dollars reinforcing New Orleans levees after Katrina, only to see the water inundating surrounding regions.
“The water’s got to go somewhere,” he said. “It’s going to find the weakest link.”
Jefferson Parish Council President Chris Roberts said forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami needed a new way of measuring the danger that goes beyond wind speed.
Hundreds of people in lower Jefferson Parish chose to ride out the storm — and many of them had to be rescued, he said.
Eric Blake, a specialist at the hurricane center, said that although Isaac’s cone shifted west as it zigzagged toward the Gulf Coast, forecasters accurately predicted its path, intensity and rainfall.
He did say the storm came ashore slower than anticipated.
“Every hurricane is different,” Blake said. “If you’re trying to use the last hurricane to gauge your storm surge risk, it’s very dangerous.”
Along the shores of Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans, officials sent scores of buses and dozens of high-water vehicles to help evacuate about 3,000 people as floodwaters lapped against houses and stranded cars.
The water rose waist-high in some neighborhoods, and the Louisiana National Guard worked with sheriff’s deputies to rescue people stuck in their homes.
In LaPlace, a Coast Guard helicopter plucked a couple and their dogs from a home after a storm surge gushed into their neighborhood and washed many houses away.
In Slidell, a city of about 30,000 people on the northeast shore of Lake Pontchartrain, floodwaters from creeks flowing into the area’s bayous had begun to inundate Olde Towne, a residential area and tourist destination, and Mayor Freddy Drennan encouraged residents in several neighborhoods to evacuate.
Louisiana officials ordered an evacuation for some 60,000 people living in communities along the rain-swollen Tangipahoa River after warning that the Tangipahoa Dam in Mississippi was in danger of failing.
While the Tangipahoa Parish website warned of “imminent failure” of the earthen dam upriver, Mississippi officials were circumspect.
In Pike County, Miss., for instance, officials called only for a “precautionary evacuation” of the area of the county south of 700-acre Lake Tangipahoa.
In a statement, Pike County said “the dam has been badly damaged by heavy rains,” but it had not been breached. The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency also said the dam was in no immediate danger.
“There’s no water coming through it. There hasn’t been a breach,” said Greg Flynn, a spokesman for the agency.
Flynn said even if the dam did fail, however, very few people would be in danger — only about 12 homes would be threatened by floodwaters.
Reasons for the widely disparate views about the danger posed by the dam were not immediately clear, but at a news conference, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana said an evacuation had been ordered for one mile on either side of the Tangipahoa River in Louisiana.
He said if the dam failed, it would take 90 minutes for floodwaters to reach the town of Kentwood — hometown of Britney Spears — downstream.
Crews intentionally breached a levee that was strained by Isaac’s floodwaters in southeast Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish, which is outside the federal levee system.
At the same time, water at a dam farther north in Mississippi was released to prevent flooding there.
More than 900,000 homes and businesses around Louisiana — about 47 percent of all customers — were without power Thursday. Utility company Entergy said that included about 157,000 in New Orleans.
In New Orleans, the decision by most residents to stay did not turn out to be disastrous. On Thursday, despite pouring rain, people began to venture out after being cooped up for the better part of two days without electricity. Some went outside to walk dogs, though many others were lining up at gas stations and corner stores.
The city’s wounds, however, appeared to be modest: street flooding, nonfunctional traffic lights, uprooted oak trees blocking roads. Cars in dealerships along Interstate 10 had floodwater halfway up their tires.
Some people, unsure of the availability of fuel and about the extent of road access, took to their bicycles.
In Mississippi, several coastal communities struggled with all the extra water, including Pascagoula, where a large portion of the city flooded and water blocked downtown intersections.
High water also prevented more than 800 people from returning to their homes in Bay St. Louis, a small town that lost most of its business district to Katrina’s storm surge.
In Biloxi, Miss., on Thursday morning, residents had hoped that the day could be spent cleaning up and assessing damage. Instead, winds were still blowing strong and heavy rain was still falling.
Gale-force winds pushed water at the mouth of the Biloxi River and prevented it from draining. In some sections, the river was overflowing its banks.
Schools and government offices remained closed. And after a couple of days without electricity, some people’s food supplies were running low. Ice was nowhere to be found.
Resort beach hotels that had been empty save for a few evacuees prepared for insurance adjusters, federal emergency workers and crews from retail stores like Home Depot, which was to send nearly 300 employees to the region to get stores open and ready for a booming business in plywood, Sheetrock and tarps.
“The first thing you go after when a storm like this is over is food and repair material,” said Kent Wagner, a human resource manager for Home Depot.
Meanwhile, Kirk became the fifth hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic season when the system’s top winds grew to 75 mph.
Kirk, 1,500 miles westsouthwest of the Azores, won’t be a threat to the U.S. because it will be steered to the northeast and out to sea, according to a National Hurricane Center advisory and track forecast.
Information for this article was contributed by Cain Burdeau, Michael Kunzelman, Brian Schwaner, Stacey Plaisance, Melinda Deslatte, Kevin McGill, Vicki Smith, Holbrook Mohr and Jeff Amy of The Associated Press; by Campbell Robertson, Kim Severson, David Thier, John Schwartz, Timothy Williams, Christine Hauser, Lori Moore and Sheelagh McNeill of The New York Times; and by Brian K. Sullivan of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 08/31/2012