About 1,200 homes near Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana were evacuated Saturday as worries mounted over the possible failure of a canal lock that could flood neighborhoods. Emergency officials tried to take some of the pressure off the lock Saturday night, but people were kept from their homes, and a flash-flood warning remained in effect. According to the National Weather Service, a wall of water resulting from the failure of the first of two canal locks would be 11 feet high. The parish’s website said Saturday that the failure of the second lock was “imminent.”
