NEW ORLEANS — At Orleans Avenue and Broad Street in New Orleans’ Mid-City neighborhood, Wednesday morning -- neighbors and business owners battled the floodwaters from a thunderstorm that dumped at least five inches of rain over a two-hour period.
During the height of the storm, the Broad Theater took on about three and a half inches of water into the business. The theater has flooded so many times in the past that they have the clean-up down to a science.
They’ve built flood gates and are able to get the water out relatively quickly with little damage. Still, owner Brian Knighten said he was incredibly frustrated. The popular neighborhood theater has already seen huge losses from local and state restrictions on business made in the struggle against the coronavirus pandemic.
“Yeah, that’s the big joke. The question becomes ‘what are you here for?’” said Knighten, speaking with WWLTV’s Paul Dudley. “The COVID-19 preparation? The protest preparation? Flood clean up? The hurricane shutdown? What are you here for?”
Knighten said he understood the theater is in a high-risk flood area, but he said he believes there are some things that can be done to reduce flooding, like using the Lafitte Greenway, the popular bike path that sits just blocks away from the business and is four to six inches higher than the theater.
“If we were able to dig some french style ditches — some simple ditches — we could easily flood the Greenway,” said Knighten. “Although, it wouldn’t stop us from flooding in a massive rain event, but this little three inches easily could have been handled by the Greenway.”
Neighbors like Kelly Jones said they're used to flooding like this. Every time it rains, she said she sits in her living room listening for the moment where the sewer lids pop off, a sign that it’s time to wake up her neighbors to tell them to move their cars.
“I heard the rain hole pop — the lid pop off,” said Jones. “I always make sure because I am the alarm for everybody — move your car.”
The warning from his neighbor was something David Donzee said he sure was thankful for.
“She is wonderful. I was asleep and she knocked, rang the bell and I am like 'Who is ringing my bell at this time.' I heard the rain, but it didn’t register, said Donze. “I would say in the past three years or so, it’s flooded five or six times like this.”
Tracy Alonso at Orleans Sheet Metal Works & Roofing said Tropical Storm Cristobal had them closed for the weekend. The impacts of this thunderstorm took them more by surprise.
“We lost four days of production,” said Alonso. “I understand the pumps can only do one inch for the first hour and a half of an inch for every residual hour, but the question I have is — is that enough? That’s not enough.”
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