NEW ORLEANS — What could have caused a smell so bad that city hall staff had to be evacuated?
Those rat rumors are unfounded, and the answer remains unknown.
On Wednesday, there was a suspected gas leak at City Hall. An evacuation followed, but that was a false alarm.
On Thursday, council members complained of a foul odor, saying they were told there were dead rodents in the wall, but the furry critters were falsely accused. By Friday, the finger-pointing had turned into a "what-done-it-style” mystery.
“I have talked to our rodent control agency, and that is not the case, even though there's still some smell. They are continuing to investigate to find out what the source of the smell is, and that hasn't been updated,” said Terry Davis, the Director of the Mayor’s Office of Communications.
When you go into the first-floor lobby, where you go through security at City Hall, there is no smell. Two other people who had been throughout the first floor said they did not smell an odor on Friday either.
Still, some of the offices on the first-floor west wing remained closed, with staff working from home, just in case, but those who remained still have this description.
“To me. It smelled like gas. You know gas don't have no odor, so they put that smell so you can smell it when it, you know, so you have to because if you don't smell it, you die,” said Tony Chupina, who works in the building’s snack bar area.
Investigators still have not narrowed down the location of where the smell started.
So, as the suspense of the stench continues to unfold, so do the questions about the need for a new city hall.
“It's an old building, and we do our best to manage it. Kudos to the engineers and all the people who work on that level to do all they have to do everyday to keep that building operational and functional for the public and for the employees,” Davis noted.
But for now, the caper of the mysterious smell remains unsolved. And the city says that City Hall has continuous pest control and monitoring for rodents.
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