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Nation in brief

Engineers: Levee danger signs were not reported

By wire services
Published November 19, 2005

NEW ORLEANS - Engineers responsible for monitoring the levees that failed following Hurricane Katrina were never told that canal water had been pooling in yards beside a flood wall months before the storm, an Army Corps of Engineers manager said Friday.

Residents living along the 17th Street Canal told the Times-Picayune newspaper in an article published Friday that they had complained to the city Sewerage and Water Board nearly a year ago about water pooling in their yards.

City workers came out and concluded environmental testing was needed to determine if water was seeping through the levee, said Beth LeBlanc, whose home is about 100 yards from where the levee later failed.

But no one, including the Sewerage and Water Board, informed the Corps of Engineers or the Orleans Levee District, said Jerry Colletti, the corps' operations manager for completed works in the New Orleans District.

"Whether they forgot or let it slip, I don't know," Colletti said Friday. "The management over there knows better that something like that should be reported."

VENTURA, Calif. - Pushed by fierce Santa Ana winds, a 2,000-acre wildfire crept toward about 200 large, ridge-top homes Friday, prompting a voluntary evacuation.

At midmorning, a wall of flames as high as 30 feet snaked along hillsides and by early afternoon a huge plume of whiskey-brown smoke carried ash to the nearby Pacific Ocean.

The late-season blaze was first reported about 3:30 a.m. in School Canyon - a hilly, rocky area between Ventura and Ojai, about 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Wind gusts of more than 50 mph helped the fire more than triple in size in just a few hours.

Two nearby schools were closed and two Red Cross shelters opened to assist evacuees, though no one had gone to them as of Friday afternoon.

About 1,000 firefighters and other personnel were at the scene, using bulldozers, water-dropping helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft in their effort to stop the blaze. One firefighter suffered minor injuries.

DES MOINES, Iowa - The second of two inmates who used a homemade grappling hook to escape from prison was captured Friday after four days on the run, and Gov. Tom Vilsack suspended at least one state employee in connection with the breakout.

Vilsack said more suspensions were expected as state officials investigate how the inmates, using a rope fashioned from upholstery webbing from the prison furniture shop, were able to scale a 30-foot stone wall without officials noticing.

Robert Joseph Legendre, 27, was captured without incident at a truck stop in Steele, Mo., where he was found sitting in a stolen pickup. The other escaped convict, Martin Moon, 34, was arrested Thursday near Chester, Ill.

Moon and Legendre escaped from the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison on Monday. A corrections official has said the guard tower near the spot where the inmates went over the wall was unmanned at the time because of budget cuts.

AURORA, Colo. - Police used dogs to search for the body of a missing 6-year-old girl Friday, a day after authorities said they believe the child had been killed and that her father and his girlfriend were "persons of interest" in the case.

Aaron Thompson reported his daughter Aarone missing on Monday, but police accused him of lying and said she may have been killed more than a year ago.

Aarone should be celebrating her seventh birthday in a couple of weeks, but she was not enrolled in school, and investigators could not find any pictures of her older than age 4 1/2, police said.

[Last modified November 19, 2005, 01:09:04]