NATCHEZ &045; A couple of weeks before Hurricane Rita dumped 7.8 inches of rain on the Miss-Lou, crews were already working to repair a hole in the Mississippi River bluff that, at its height, was 20 feet wide and at least 60 feet deep.

And they’ve made great progress in the two weeks they’ve been on the job, according to City Engineer David Gardner, repairing the hole and placing rock along the near Learned’s Mill Road to help keep that section in place.

The only glitch: with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reallocating funds to pay for post-hurricane work in New Orleans, less federal money may be available to complete the project.

&uot;But the project will go on,&uot; Gardner said. &uot;We’ll fix it; we just may have to put less rock in there.&uot;

The problem dates back to 2001, when the U.S. Corps of Engineers finished a more than $28 million bluff stabilization project from Clifton Avenue to Silver Street.

Unlike other areas of the bluff, which are drained with more durable metal pipes, the section contains plastic drainage pipes that have deteriorated due to ultraviolet rays.

Such deterioration has allowed water to seep out of the pipes during heavy rains and erode a section of the bluff, leading to the hole.

Next, crews will replace the pipe in question with a metal one to help prevent further erosion.

He believes work can be completed by winter with the more than $300,000 the Corps has already allocated for the project.

Then, after the fiscal year that starts Saturday is well under way, Gardner hopes the Corps can find an additional $300,000 to $400,000 to further shore up the section with more rock, among other tasks.

Meanwhile, Gardner said the bluff and most of the rest of Natchez’s infrastructure fared well during the weekend’s heavy rains.

No sinkholes were reported and no major flooding was experienced. However, silty water seeped into a few houses in the John Glenn Avenue area when a ditch not designed for that volume of water backed up, Gardner said.

Gardner said he plans to take a look at improvements that could be made to that ditch, especially since completion of the nearby Natchez Trace extension has routed more runoff water to that ditch.