HARAHAN, La. — The Soniat Canal next to Generes Drive in Harahan looked and smelled pretty foul.
Monday, Lawrence Shuey walked his dog along the canal.
He said Sunday, conditions there were even worse.
“The water was dark and cloudy, and it stunk,” Shuey said. “It smelled like raw sewage. I’ve seen it looking bad before, but it never smelled so bad as it did yesterday.”
Julie Anderson lives across the street from the canal.
“It was horrible,” Anderson said. “You walked out of your home, and it smelled like you were walking into a port-o-let. It was just horrible. It was overwhelming and nauseating.”
Harahan Mayor Tim Baudier confirms raw sewage started flowing into the drainage canal after a lift station on 9th Street clicked offline.
He says the station started receiving “sporadic” power before noon and lost power altogether around 7 or 8 Sunday night.
“We figured it was probably somewhere around the beginning of the Saints game yesterday when the power was actually cutting in and out,” Baudier said. “It wasn’t until evening time when we noticed that the power was completely shut off because they had a report that the telephone pole was burning at that point.”
It’s unclear how much sewage may have leaked into the canal.
“I knew there was something pumping into it because we haven’t had any rain and I could see a steady flow of water, like it was moving, so I knew something was going into it that shouldn’t have been going into it,” Anderson said.
The city of Harahan is now in the process of cleaning up the mess. There were vacuum trucks in the neighborhood clearing out whatever sewage made it into the drainage system. Another crew was also putting disinfectant in the canal.
“As soon as daylight broke today, they were moving and, on the scene, and they’ll be out there quite a while just making sure that everything is cleaned up, tidy, perfect and that no citizen is going to be at risk,” Baudier said.
The mayor says Entergy quickly restored power to the lift station.
He’s hoping the sewage will be cleared up by the end of the day.
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