NEW ORLEANS — Neighbors living next to the canal in New Orleans East told WWL-TV the streetlight outside their home has been out for about two years.
“I’ve been begging, I say I fear for my life. Alligators come out of that canal. One of them could be in my yard," one neighbor told Eyewitness News.
They said when the sun goes down, their worries increase due to the poor lighting. One of the neighbors said she hopes the city will fix it soon.
"It may or may not help the crime situation, but it makes me feel better," the New Orleans East resident said.
She told Eyewitness News she's reached out to the city multiple times.
“Calling the councilman’s office and calling 311, approximately 10 to 12 times," the resident said.
With nothing resolved, her end of the block sits in darkness.
"Afraid to come home and get out of the car. Afraid to leave the house at night. Safety is our top priority," she said.
Their streetlight is just one example of an outage.
A recent study that was released by the French Quarter Management District looked at 902 light poles across the historic French Quarter.
Executive Director, Karley Frankic, said around a dozen volunteers worked for months to compile the data.
“We’ve known in the French Quarter that we’ve had a lot of streetlights out, but we didn’t have any data to point to with real numbers with the quantities and locations of those streetlights that were out," Frankic said.
The study found that of the 902 lights surveyed, 21 percent did not function, 34 percent were damaged, and 32 percent were a hazard to the public.
But the French Quarter is just a fraction of all streetlights across New Orleans.
According to the City of New Orleans, The Department of Public Works is responsible for maintenance of the 54,000 streetlights around the City of New Orleans, including along the interstates in Orleans Parish.
"At present, we estimate that there are between 5,000-6,000 outages across the City, many of which occurred as a result of Hurricane Ida," the City said.
According to the City, its $4.3 million one-year streetlight repair contract began in August with contractor, All Star.
"All Star has five crews on average supporting this effort daily, and they are working to repair outages, prioritizing those that we have identified are in high crime areas as well as outages around schools," the City said.
So far, All Star has made 1,000 repairs and has about 80 major repairs in progress, the City said.
"Our goal is to get back to 98 percent of our streetlights operational as we were in December 2020," the City said.
The French Quarter Management District said its optimistic about repairs coming soon.
“They’re working with us to get the streetlights in the French Quarter fixed. It’s a really great feeling to work with the City and provide them that data and see them take action on it," Frankic said.
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