In New Orleans, Anxiously Watching the Levees As Hurricane Ida Arrives

The prospect of “another Katrina” has haunted New Orleans, and the rest of the nation.

NEW ORLEANS — As Hurricane Ida began violently tearing through South Louisiana on Sunday, Kelli Chandler was holed up in a windowless office, waiting and watching for the answer to a question that all of New Orleans was asking: Would the levees — the newer, stronger, more sophisticated levees — hold back the storm? Ms. Chandler, an official in the nerve center of the sprawling $20 billion storm defense system that was upgraded after the misery of Hurricane Katrina, spent hours fielding emails, calls, and texts from a web of officials and agencies that were keeping their eyes on the new system. The early signs, she said early Sunday evening, were good, but the final answers were far from clear. Ida was not finished with New Orleans. So the waiting and worrying went on. “We’re expecting peak winds later on tonight,” she said.