NEW ORLEANS — When it rains, some New Orleans neighbors in the Lakeview area, know streets near their homes can quickly fill up with water.
That was the case during Saturday’s sudden storm for Virginia Shaw on Marshal Foch Street.
“There was a lot of water that came really quickly,” Shaw said. “We had to move all of our cars to the cross street which is Walker which is slightly higher ground.”
She showed us a picture of her husband standing in the middle of their flooded-out street.
“When we finally decided to move the pickup truck, at this point, it’s coming up on the hubcap,” Shaw said. “He’s six foot two and it’s coming above his shins, right. It’s a pretty high water line.”
There were also high water lines along Fleur de Lis near the West End.
Many of the roads there were barely passable.
“I would say it doesn’t seem like a recurring issue, it is a recurring issue,” New Orleans City Councilman Joe Giarrusso said.
Giarrusso added that as the streets started flooding, so did his inbox with emails from residents like Shaw, wondering if the pumps were working.
“My husband and I were both curious if the pumps were on,” Shaw said. “The water just seemed to sit. It was not receding.”
According to the Sewerage and Water Board, the drainage pumping system performed as designed over the weekend and there were no pumps down in the Lakeview area.
“In parts of Lakeview, there were rain intensities as high as 5.04 inches were seen at DPS 7 and DPS 12, with approximately 2.5 inches of rain falling in these areas,” SWBNO said in a written statement.
Councilman Giarrusso says he believes Lakeview flooding is not so much an issue with the pumps as it is a problem with overall drainage and pumping capacity.
“I saw it on Milne (Street) firsthand, water just sitting on top of a drain and not moving at all. I think at DPS 12 you need either a new pump or a pump adjacent to DPS 12 that is providing the extra capacity needed.”
The city is now working on a drainage study for the Lakeview area.
SWBNO is reminding residents: "When rain intensities are high – over one inch an hour – residents may see localized street flooding. SWBNO’s drainage system can handle one inch of rain per hour and a half an inch of rain each hour after that. That means 3 inches of rain can take up to 5 hours to drain.”
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