NEW ORLEANS — Right now, thousands of New Orleans 311 requests for broken street lights are waiting to be addressed, but for many of them, it's not such an easy fix. If everything goes smoothly, DPW estimates that it takes about 30 to 40 weeks to repair a light on the interstate.
"That is unfortunate, 20 weeks just for supply order assuming there’s no supply chain issue. Then the approvals and getting them online is another 8 weeks so anywhere 30, 40 weeks out is average," Shannon Blanks with DPW said.
Plus, they keep going out, but it's not always because of a burnt-out bulb. Council President Helena Moreno says a fourth of the lights out on the interstate are because of stolen copper. NOPD says a big chunk of those lights are in the east.
"It’s almost like we’re playing whack-a-mole, where we’ll go fix lights. The next thing we know, the copper is stolen, and once again, the light is out," Moreno said.
The city is working on a master plan to address the issue. NOPD says they can help mitigate the theft, but it'll be difficult without a full staff.
"Obviously, I wish we could patrol everywhere on the interstate, but we don’t have that capability yet. So we’re going to use our data analytics. Where does this happen? Where do we need to put our officers?" Hans Ganthier, NOPD's Chief Deputy Superintendent, said.
Moreno also suggests using different materials, such as aluminum or solar-powered lights.
"The problem with aluminum is that it doesn’t last as long as copper but the way I see it is our lights aren’t lasting at all right now with copper," Moreno said.
She says approaching this differently than they have in the past will hopefully keep drivers safe and lower crime.
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