ALONG THE LOUISIANA COAST – As Frederick Young worked to increase the flow of water out of New Orleans, he had more at stake than a paycheck. His own home was only blocks away.

Young, an employee of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ New Orleans District, was working Wednesday in their offices to maintain and expand the capacity of permanent and portable pumps in five areas of the metropolitan area.

Young said he had been working at that task for six days, since about three days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama coasts.

“I live 13 blocks from (the New Orleans District offices),” Young said, adding he has no idea what his home looks like. “Too much work – 14-, 16- and 18-hour days. But you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”

Young was outside the center’s disaster base, which was moved about a mile from the parish courthouse to the offices of Chalmette Refining after the courthouse took on water from the storm. At least one boat could be seen in the front yard of the parish courthouse.

Young was among those who met with the commander of the Mississippi Valley Division, Brig. Gen. Robert Crear of Vicksburg, who traveled by helicopter to visit parish, city and Corps officials at four sites in Jefferson, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes.

Crear had toured almost all the area by air since his arrival at his division’s forward headquarters across from Baton Rouge about a week earlier.

On Wednesday, he and four members of his staff could see effects of Katrina along the coast, including damage to most structures and trees that were either knocked down or left bowed by the storm’s winds. Only the rooftops of homes were visible in most flooded areas, and some homes could be seen moved from their foundations and pushed against each other at odd angles. Some holes could be seen in the rooftops where people had cut through their attic roofs to escape rising water.

Katrina hit Aug. 29, and walls of the New Orleans area’s complex flood-protection system were breached Aug. 30 by Lake Pontchartrain water driven by the 140-mph winds of Katrina, backward into canals, Corps officials have said.

Helicopters have been working to drop sandbags and other materials into the breaches. A gap at London Avenue was Wednesday’s focus. A backhoe was working to improve land access to one of the breach sites.

Water could be seen being pumped back over the walls in at least two places, and Crear said he could see improvement from the previous day, with the water level inside the levees having dropped about 8 to 10 feet in some areas.

Also helping the water level drop were intentional notches made by Corps contractors and parish and local flood-protection authorities to take advantage of gravity where possible in un-watering the flooded area and its suburbs.

Crear said he was continuing to make in-person visits across the coast like those he made because Katrina had disabled communications between civilians and military personnel and he wanted to try to ensure that the Corps was doing everything it could to support recovery efforts. Crear said the meetings help identify specific problems he can help solve.

The Corps is working in support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which under a national response plan is managing its missions in un-watering flooded areas, removing debris and providing ice, water, emergency power, temporary shelter and roof repairs.

Officially, the New Orleans District moved in with the Vicksburg District under a disaster management plan created in case of a storm as severe as Katrina. In the seat of Jefferson Parish, Metairie, Parish President Aaron Broussard said that even though parts of that parish remained under water, he planned to have restored “sustainable life by three weeks from this Friday,” acknowledging that as an aggressive schedule.

He commented on the difficulties. “We went in one fell swoop from Jetsons to Flintstones,” Broussard said. “We’re yabba-dabba-doo people now.”

Broussard repeated to Crear his comments aired nationally that the FEMA response to the crisis was inadequate.

The Corps has liaison officers at most such emergency-management centers. Matt J. Caesar of the emergency-management branch of the Seattle District was filling that role for Jefferson Parish and said he was there on an assignment of at least 30 days.

In St. Bernard Parish, Crear met with parish president Henry “Junior” Rodriguez and expedited a request for refueling for backup generators for a pumping station that had continued to be operated during and after Katrina even though the station’s roof had been blown off.

“There are some heroes there,” Crear said of those who continued to staff the station.

Also outside the emergency-operations center at Chalmette Refining were officials of the National Guard task force that had been sent to the parish. Sgt. Maj. Mike Koob of the Colorado Army National Guard said troops from that state, Georgia and Maryland, as well as of the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force, had begun arriving there Tuesday and were at a strength of about 900 Wednesday.

New to Crear was seeing low-lying Plaquemines Parish. “Plaquemines doesn’t exist anymore,” Crear said.

At a stop at the Plaquemines Parish offices, Parish President Benny Rouselle said about 100 personnel were continuing search-and-rescue efforts and that they had found three fatalities from Katrina. A helicopter from a neighboring parish was arriving at the county offices and offering any help it could provide.

In Grand Isle, a town of about 2,500 year-round and up to 10,000 summer residents toward the eastern end of Jefferson Parish, Mayor David J. Camardelle said the main need was for repairs to a bridge that may have been damaged by the storm.

Eight Grand Isle residents remained on the island during the storm and all survived, despite winds that Camardelle said registered 188 mph on a gauge later found, broken.

Intentional breaches and then closures had also been made to sand dunes that protect Grand Isle from flooding from the north, Camardelle said. An eye was being kept on the tides and the weather, he added. Hurricane season continues through the end of November.