[BananaTom]

NEWORLEANS — Twenty-five people were still trapped in attics on the east bank of Plaquemines Parish after 12-to-14 feet of water flowed through a breach in a levee Wednesday morning as slow-moving Hurricane Isaac continued its assault on southeastern Louisiana.

By 9:30 a.m., 65 residents in Plaquemines Parish were on the rescue list with attempts to save more people ongoing.

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungessar said along with emergency officials, citizens were using their personal boats to rescue those trapped. St. Bernard Parish authorities also were aiding in the rescue efforts.
Nungessar said large boats were stationed in the Mississippi River, staged in a place that will allow them to cross over to the east bank ferry landing to aid in rescue efforts once conditions allow.

Hurricane Isaac, an 80-mph Category 1 system that made its landfall Tuesday evening, comes seven years to the day that Hurricane Katrina roared ashore.

Army Corps of Engineer officials said that a multi-billion levee system rebuilt and fortified after Katrina was holding up and that pumping stations were operating as designed. Seven years earlier, levee breaches allowed water to flood 80 percent of New Orleans.

Isaac’s wrath was felt in other ways.

Nearly 540,000 Entergy customers in Louisiana were without power Wednesday morning. Included in that number were more than 159,000 in Orleans Parish and 172,000-plus in neighboring Jefferson Parish, the two most-affected parishes in the state.

In St. John the Baptist Parish to the west of New Orleans, water was shut off to Laplace after Lake Pontchartrain rose to levels high enough to cause contamination concerns to the system. President Nathalie Robottom said as of 8 a.m. Wednesday morning, 95 percent of her parishes residents were without power.

St. Bernard Parish residents were asked to limit water usage. There were no reports of water in homes mid-morning, a good sign after 98 percent of all structures flooded during Katrina.