Tornadoes Blow Through New Orleans
Thursday, February 2, 2006 11:03 AM EST
The Associated Press
By JANET McCONNAUGHEY
KENNER, La. (AP) — Tornadoes early Thursday tore through New Orleans neighborhoods that were hit hard by Hurricane Katrina just five months earlier, collapsing at least one previously damaged house and battering the airport, authorities said.
Roofs were ripped off and utility poles came down, but no serious injuries were reported.
"Don't ever ask the question, `What else could happen?'" said Marcia Paul Leoni, a mortgage banker who was surveying the new damage to her Katrina-flooded home.
She would go no farther than the front porch of her house Thursday morning. Windows were blown out, and the building appeared to be leaning.
"I've been in the mortgage business for 20 years. I know when something's unsafe," she said.
Electricity was knocked out at Louis Armstrong International Airport, grounding passenger flights and leaving travelers to wait in a dimly lit terminal powered by generators. The storm also ripped off part of a concourse roof, slammed one jetway into another, and flipped motorized runway luggage carts.
"There's more damage to the terminal than I saw during the hurricane," airport spokeswoman Michelle Duffourc said.
A line of severe thunderstorms moved across the area around 2:30 a.m. Tim Destri, of the National Weather Service, said it appeared the damage was caused by two tornadoes, one that hit the airport and another that moved into New Orleans.
The storm collapsed at least one house in New Orleans' hurricane-ravaged lakefront, police said.
"I cannot believe this. We were hit twice. It's not bad enough we got 11 feet of water," said Maria Kay Chetta, a city grants manager. While her own home was not badly damaged, one across the street lost its roof and another had heavy damage to its front.
The wind also blew down a radio tower near a major thoroughfare, authorities said.
The National Weather Service had yet not determined whether a tornado had hit. The thunderstorm topped 50 mph as it raced across the region before dawn.
