Hurricane Ike swirled west Friday, hitting western Louisiana and eastern Texas with a storm surge that breached levees and caused widespread flooding in Terrebonne Parish and St. Mary Parish and in communities outside the levee system in the New Orleans region.

Rusty Costanza / The Times-PicayuneGov. Bobby Jindal pictured here on Wednesday.

BATON ROUGE -- Gov. Bobby Jindal on Friday called on schools and universities in the areas hit hard by Hurricane Gustav to prepare hot meals for returning evacuees and those stranded without power.

Plaquemines Parish fought into the night Wednesday to plug a widening levee breach toward the middle of the peninsula at Pointe Celeste, rushing to get enough sandbags in place to form a horseshoe barricade around the opening and save homes from flooding.

Plaquemines was largely spared Hurricane Gustav's wrath. But persistent storm surge from marshlands to the west have continued to pour water through the breach, which grew from about 30 feet wide Tuesday to 150 feet Wednesday morning.

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, which had hoped to reopen Wednesday, now has its sights set on Thursday.

Water trapped inside the Company Canal barge gate was down to a 2-foot elevation midday Wednesday, indicating more progress on the overnight fight to keep tidal surge off defective levees that protect Westwego.

Water levels on the vulnerable Company Canal in Westwego stabilized Wednesday morning, after an all-night fight to seal leaks in the new barge gate that was built to keep surge off precarious floodwalls.

Several hundred St. Bernard Parish residents were lined up before dawn on Paris Road, waiting to return to their homes. As promised, officials opened the roadblocks at 6 a.m., and they began streaming back in.

The Army Corps of Engineers is currently opening the floodgates at the London Avenue Canal, which kept a surge at bay since they were closed Monday.

A flood fight at the Company Canal ramped up considerably after midnight Tuesday when a large pump and heavy equipment were rushed to the West Bank of Jefferson Parish to help battle a leaking floodgate that protects Westwego.

An Army Corps of Engineers-sponsored study of the reasons for failures of the levee system during Hurricane Katrina should include stronger warnings about the risk of living behind New Orleans' substandard levee system and of building a still-risky replacement, according to an independent panel of engineers.

"While the region's residents may be breathing a sigh of relief at Gustav's near-miss, they should not allow a sense of false security to settle in," the American Society of Civil Engineers' external review panel wrote in a preface to a seven-page letter report. "New Orleans still faces a higher level of risk from flooding than would be acceptable for many other engineered life-protection systems, and another 'Katrina-like' hurricane is inevitable.

St. John the Baptist Parish residents will be allowed to re-enter the parish at 6 a.m. Wednesday, said Parish President Bill Hubbard.

Several checkpoints on the Metairie-New Orleans line have been removed, allowing free access to any motorist even though officials say Jefferson Parish doesn't reopen until Wednesday at 6 a.m.

Hurricane Gustav evacuees were invited to begin streaming back into St. Bernard Parish Wednesday at 6 a.m., but Parish President Craig Taffaro cautioned that the entire parish could be without power for several more days.

"If you don't have a generator to run an air conditioner, it's going to be awfully hot and humid," he said Tuesday. "This is not an environment for everyone. It's for those who absolutely feel like they must return."

Water from swollen marshland to the west has punched a hole more than 30 feet wide and 20 feet deep in a private levee at Pointe Celeste in Plaquemines Parish, threatening to flood area homes and cut the peninsula in half.

Water as high as two feet has flooded over pasture land and onto Louisiana 23, the main highway corridor through the parish. The water is still rising from the lingering storm surge of Hurricane Gustav. Water is also overtopping levees north near Myrtle Grove.