The Sewerage & Water Board is investigating a photo posted on social media Friday that appears to show an employee sleeping in an agency vehicle while crews were working on a water main in the French Quarter.
"Our team is aware of the situation and we are investigating," said S&WB Press Secretary Curtis Elmore. "We certainly encourage employees to perform assigned duties and our goal is to foster among our employees a strong sense of duty and pride in their work. We appreciate the patience of our customers as we work to get to the bottom of this matter."
S&WB workers are allowed to take 15-minute breaks. WWL-TV asked if using that time to take a nap in an agency vehicle is allowed, but has not yet received a response.
The image is particularly damning because it appears the morning after the Sewerage & Water Board acknowledged for the first time that two supervisors who were needed to fix a loss in water pressure at the agency's central water plant in November were asleep and did not respond when they were needed, costing the agency precious minutes and forcing the entire East Bank to endure a boil water advisory that lasted 28 hours.
Both of those workers have resigned.
The new photo of the worker in the vehicle was posted on Reddit by someone identified as drew_sleaze. The photo was later removed but the thread remains active. The post says water service was lost on St. Peter Street in the French Quarter and crews were on-scene to fix it, but the Sewerage & Water Board worker was sleeping in the driver's seat of the truck at 7 a.m. Friday (January 11, 2019).
Asked about the photo Friday, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said she had seen it and was waiting to see the results of the Sewerage & Water Board's investigation. She said it's a "new day" in city government and she had "zero tolerance" for employees who don't perform their job duties.
"It’s a zero tolerance as it relates to, if you are employed to do a job, we all need to do that job," Cantrell said. "And if there’s an issue where it’s not being done, then we’re going to follow proper protocols and procedures to ensure that we have people on the job who are actually doing the work."
The S&WB confirmed it had crews at the site both Thursday and Friday to do scheduled water main repairs, which require them to shut off localized water service for certain periods. The employee in the photograph is a valve operator who is responsible for turning water on and off but wouldn't necessarily be involved in the repair work itself.
The headline on the Reddit post reads: "No water on St. Peter at 7 am. Don't worry, SWB is on it!"
Dozens of comments follow urging people to report the photo to the agency and pointing out how bad it looks the day after learning that sleeping workers were responsible for the November debacle.
