New Orleans water officials respond to weekend street flooding
NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Heavy rainfall on Saturday flooded streets across the New Orleans area.
Hours before the storm on Saturday, Feb 3., the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans announced Turbine 4 was taken offline for a mechanical issue.
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“We’ve said this many, many times. It’s very, very old, very fragile,” said Sewerage and Water Board Executive Director Ghassan Korban. “We fix one thing and turn the turbine on with fingers crossed that nothing else will go wrong. But inevitably, things do go wrong.”
Built in 1915, Turbine 4 is over 100 years old. However, officials with SWBNO said the downed turbine was not a major contribution to the flooding.
“So, we believe, and we’re confident that even if that did not happen, we would have had water standing in streets throughout the city because of the intensity,” said Korban.
Gutter buddies, a filter for the gutter used during Mardi Gras to keep beads and trash from going down the drain, were also partially to blame for the water-filled neighborhoods.
“It certainly slowed water from going into the system and caused some backing in specific areas,” said Korban.
But SWBNO officials said the amount of rainfall was the primary reason for the weekend flooding.
The SWBNO is working to get ahead of the problem by rebuilding the system. A million-dollar project is in the works to make all the pumps in the city powered by one major source.
“We’re going to have 60 plus megawatts where, in fact, typically we need about 40 or so,” said Korban. “So, we’ll have plenty of power and it’s reliable, it’s efficient.”
Completion of the project is expected by 2025. Korban said it isn’t expected to fix the problem completely.
“They will never be 100% flood proof. No system anywhere in this country or elsewhere has a flood proof system. It’s just it’s not feasible and it cannot be built.”
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