By IRNA,
New York : New Orleans, the nearly deserted city appeared to have escaped threats of full-scale devastation on Monday when Hurricane Gustav came ashore 70 miles to the southwest, bearing winds and rain far less formidable than earlier forecast.
The storm smashed through the bayou country of rural Louisiana, raising fears of widespread coastal erosion and damage to fishing villages that state officials were unable to confirm Monday evening.
But before making landfall, it was downgraded from a Category 3 hurricane to Category 2 when its winds slowed to 110 miles per hour, from 115 m.p.h., and state officials said they believed their worst fears had not been realized.
By Monday evening, the hurricane was down to Category 1.
The levees in New Orleans were tested by a heavy storm surge but held, even though the repair and reconstruction work from Hurricane Katrina, which hit three years ago, is far from finished.
In Hurricane Gustav’s wake, angry waves pounded against a floodwall on the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal, considered a particularly weak link.
Though the water lapped over the wall for hours, there was only ankle-to-knee-deep water on the streets it was protecting, on the edge of the Ninth Ward, a neighborhood that was hit hard after Hurricane Katrina.