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STORmS • COflTinUCD FROIRI Pontchartrain from swamping New Orleans again. Although engineers have left a large opening in the wall to allow floodwater to continue to be pumped back into the lake, it will have to be closed quickly if Rita or another storm threatens. Government engineers and private contractors also worked around the clock across New Orleans to repair the damage to the system of pumps, concrete floodwalls, earthen berms and canals that protect the below sea-level city. In addition, the corps had 800 giant sandbags weighing 6,000 to 15,000 pounds on hand just in case, and ordered 2,500 more to shore up low spots and plug any new breaches. It was also putting pumps and other materials where they might be needed. “If New Orleans was directly affected by a Category 1, I would be concerned — I would pull my people out,” said David Pezza, the top geotechnical engineer for the Army Corps. “These levees are gready compromised.” Rita’s threat to the levees already forced the mayor to suspend tjie phased reopening of the city and order a new round of evacuations. In some areas where bars, restaurants and shops were opening their doors for the first time since Hurricane Katrina, people were boarding up windows and getting ready to leave town again. “I’m worried about getting more rain,” Frank Wills said as he packed up to leave his 150 year-old Creole cottage in uptown New Orleans. “The ground’s saturated, and a lot of the storm drains are clogged up with garbage. If we get much at all, I think you’ll see flooding where you never saw it before.” Even residents who have already been evacuated once faced the prospect of being uprooted again. At the Cajun Dome in Lafayette, emergency officials arranged to take the 1,000 refugees from the New Orleans area out on buses if Rita tracks north. “Nobody here even wants to hear the word 'hurricane’ right now,” said Carlette Ragas, who has not been back to her home on Plaquemines Parish, south of New Orleans, since Katrina and has already enrolled her children, ages 11 and 7, in a Lafayette-area school. The call for another evacuation of New Orleans came after repeated warnings from top federal officials, including President Bush, that the city was not yet safe because DESIGfl • COflTinUGD FROdl I Students in the group affect the way shared dorm rooms are designed. “When the Towers were designed, gang bathrooms were popular,” Sherry said. Campus is gradually shifting toward apartment-style dorms. “There’s a difference in the type of marketing, like apartment style dorms that were aimed at upperclassmen,” said Charlie Jeffcoat, director of Campus Planning and Construction. Dorms are also being designed with social events in mind. “We have been doing academic learning centers (in the dorms). Also breakout areas where students can get together on the halls,” Jeffcoat said. Dorm design might seem to depend on the kind of dorm, as a residence hall and honors college have different needs. But “there is no difference,” Jeffcoat said. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknews@gwm.sc. edu Craig Litten / Daytona Beach News-Journal Tanner Epperson, 8, of Shawnee, Okla. plays in the rough surf caused by Hurricane Rita while visiting Daytona Beach with his family on Tuesday evening. of the lack of full electricity, drinkable water and 911 emergency service. Nagin ordered residents who had slipped back into still closed parts of the city to leave immediately. He also urged everyone already settled back into Algiers, the only neighborhood now open to returning residents, to be ready to evacuate as early as Wednesday. Nagin said two busloads of evacuees left from a staging area at the convention center Tuesday afternoon. He estimated that 400 to 500 residents were left in the city. The city decided to allow people to continue cleanup until dusk Tuesday and will start to re-enforce the evacuation order Wednesday, he said. He did not give specifics on how the order will be enforced. To people who refuse to leave, Nagin had this message: “Were all adults. We really don’t want to take people out by gunpoint. We hope they see the threat... and obey the law.” If Rita does affect the city, Blanco promised the emergency response would be well coordinated. “Now obviously that’s a lot easier this time” because emergency workers already are in the area, she said. President Bush made his fifth trip to the Hurricane Katrina zone on Tuesday to meet with local business and political leaders in Gulfport, Miss., and received a briefing in New Orleans on preparations for Hurricane Rita. Bush also appeared with Nagin amid tensions between the mayor and Allen over who is in charge, and conflicting information on whether people should come or go. At one point this week, Nagin said Allen apparendy regarded himself as “the new crowned federal mayor of New Orleans.” SURPLUS • COflTIIIUED FROIDI lighting, different capital projects to make the campus better and safer for all students, and we’ll be doing the same type of things,” Preston said. Already, $10,000 has been allocated to help the Russeh House pay for renovations to student senate chambers, although, only about half of that money was used in efforts to keep the renovations as cheap as possible, Preston said. Williams will also speak about the work he and his administration have done since their March inauguration in areas such as transportation, academics, student life and - faculty student relationships. He said SG has disproved the idea that things can’t be done around campus, listing the continuation of the readership program, the parking lot behind the Strom Thurmond Wellness & Fitness Center, the turn lane into the Greek Village, and the bus from South Tower to sorority and fraternity meetings in the Greek Village on Mondays as some of the many, achievements of the past year. “SG has been very busy and the people we’ve been helping are very happy,” Williams said. Comments on this story? E-mail gamccocknews@gwm. sc. edu AMECOCK Nobody covers USC better. 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